


Our Last Summer

by Ivanisamarauder



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Best Friends, Book 4: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Character Death, Death, Dragons, F/F, F/M, First War with Voldemort, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, I Will Go Down With This Ship, Major Character Injury, Ministry of Magic (Harry Potter), Multi-Era, Neurodiversity, OCs introduced, Pre-Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Quidditch, Semi-Canon Compliant, Triwizard Tournament, Veela, brothers best friend, not a slow burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-18
Updated: 2021-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-19 07:49:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 22,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29623002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ivanisamarauder/pseuds/Ivanisamarauder
Summary: Molly Weasley was not always a mother and a wife. Before, she was a daughter, a sister, and a lover. After her 7th year ended in June of 1968, Molly stayed home and learned a little about love, passion, and heartbreak. She discovers the Beatles, The Tokens, and that not everyone is as they seem. As time goes on, and the war escalates, Molly learns that being kind doesn't mean life is easy.Follow along with Molly and the Prewetts as they venture into adulthood and the war against Lord Voldemort.Spotify Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2VvwSFDvCrOiqxWyLjUJnD?si=7zZ8RWTHTCi3mVdT41Yk5Q
Relationships: Arthur Weasley & Molly Weasley, Arthur Weasley/Molly Weasley, Molly Weasley & Alastor "Mad Eye" Moody, Molly Weasley/Alastor "Mad Eye" Moody
Comments: 10
Kudos: 8





	1. Prologue:

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the conclusion of the Second Wizarding World, the Weasley House is in shambles. They're grieving and Arthur tries to help Molly cope with the reality of her biggest fear.

The war was over, and it was for real this time. Ronald had come home, Harry had won, and Hermione decided to stay while the ministry sorted everything out. The Burrow was full, and no matter how much pain overflowed the walls of their home, everyone was welcome at all hours. Even Andromeda and Teddy came so they weren’t alone.

Molly was caught in this place where she had to stand up straight and keep her family afloat. Percy and George were constantly crying, Ginny was silent except when she was alone with Harry, and the only way anyone could tell Hermione and Ron were two people was because her ebony skin contrasted so beautiful with Ron’s. Everyone was coping, everyone was forced to mourn, except Arthur and Molly weren’t allowed that courtesy. 

It wasn’t until everyone had gone to bed Molly allowed herself to register the reality of everyone who had fallen throughout the war. Now that it had culminated, the Burrow was engulfed with this strange and difficult juxtaposition of pain and enamorment. Percy was home, yet Fred was gone. Harry had won, but at the cost of his innocence. Ron and Hermione were engaged, but Remus and Nymphadora were to be buried in the morning. 

“Duck,” Arthur had said softly to Molly the night before. She had woken herself up screaming again, reimagining the lifeless body of Bellatrix Lestrange at the feet of her daughter. There was a reason Giedon and Alastor had insisted war wasn’t for Molly all those years ago, but she hadn’t the privilege of listening to them this time. Molly wasn’t aware she was crying just as she had been for the last week. “You should go see him tomorrow.” 

It took her a moment to register what he had said to her. She rolled over to face him and her fist gripped his shirt. The overwhelming silence told her husband that he needed to say more. 

“I know you can’t talk to me right now,” he continued. His voice was raspy––he’d been crying too. “Go talk to him in the morning. I’ll get breakfast. Charlie and Bill are going to go get things ready. The plot is next to James and Sirius, so you can just meet us there after you’re done. Andromeda will be here before, and the kids are old enough to get ready themselves.”

He was talking about her going to see Alastor. He had been someone she could talk to, especially as the second war had built up. Their lives were different than before, but somehow they’d managed to relearn how to be friends. 

But she couldn’t think of leaving, not with everyone here, not with all this emptiness.

“I can’t,” she told him, the tears welling up again. Her body shook against his in an attempt to muffle her sobs. “I have to be...I need to get George before I go.”

“Take a morning off, Molly. Let me get George. I’ll make sure he gets some coffee and makes it there,” he told her. “He went to bed with Perce, so maybe he’ll stay in...I know you want to take care of them, but let me do it and you can take care of….you can talk to him. I think you need that.”

Arthur was offering to take away the  _ one thing _ she could do to help George right now, but she knew it was necessary. If she kept this up, she wouldn’t be able to knit the family back together again, she’d burn out and fall apart, she’d break to bits. So she agreed to let Arthur take George duty with a single, silent nod. He would go to see Fred in the morning and find Geroge there, in a sleeping bag next to his brother; he insisted that he needed to sleep with Fred and had become paralyzed by the need to be near his twin. They would wake George up for breakfast for his first appointment with the Mind Healer and then take him to Godrick’s Hollow for the funerals. Honestly, from where Molly stood sleeping on a grave was one of the better coping skills he could have. 

Months ago, Bill had gone out to retrieve Alastor’s body, with no success. Molly hoped there was nothing left to retrieve, not because she thought it best –– she’d have rather had a proper funeral –– but because Alastor would have hated the possibility that someone could make him an inferious. He’d rather be obliterated than used as a prop for Voldemort. Just the small memorial hadn’t been enough for her, and she knew it wasn’t enough for his son, either. As much as it pained her to admit, Ron and Harry’s  _ stupid  _ theft had given them a place to pay respects. None of them talked much about what happened during the months they were fighting, but they did share the location of Moody and Dobby’s graves. 

Before Molly left the house she checked in on all the kids, twice, and made sure they were still in their beds. Percy was asleep in Fred’s bed, wrapped in his younger brother’s sweater. George was sitting on the edge of his bed just staring at the wall. Molly wasn’t sure if she’d rather him be outside or like this, but either way, he was there. Hermione’s shaking body was tangled in bed with Ron, which no one fought them on after everything they’d been through. Ginny and Harry were awake in Ginny’s room; they were talking quietly and Molly heard Harry crying, so she didn’t open the door. Charlie and Bill were asleep in what used to be their room. They were there, they were alive, but none of them were okay. 

Her journey could have been short if she’d chosen to apparate right there, but she made a small pitstop at the base of an old castle in Whales. It wasn’t far from her childhood home, which made her think of her brothers. While she stood at the base of the crumbling rocks, she wondered if after it all, when the world shifted from life to death, that the people we love most were reunited. Molly thought often of the afterlife, but especially now she hoped that Alastor was sitting with her brothers and Genny laughing like they’d all done all those years before. Were they watching her as she plucked the wild flowers from their home? Could they see the pain, or were they able to rejoice in the fact that the world that had taken their youth, their lives, was going to pull itself back together again? 

Alastor died loving her, she knew that much. He’d told her that much. Except, it'd been years since there was that spark of passion and love from her side. That didn’t negate the importance of the man who had fallen to protect her Chosen Son and the rest of her family. Yes, he was fighting to win the war and defeat You-Know-Who, but he was so diligent, so careful, that it never seemed like a possibility that he’d have been the one to die.

The wind rustled the trees, dancing like they knew there was something to celebrate. The water, though, it sat still and somber, completely aware that the celebration of the wind was premature, that something bigger had to happen before August could come again. Molly leaned over the patch of grass where his eye had been buried and placed the bouquet of wildflowers on the site, letting out a soft sob into the open air. She had all the privacy in the world, but the eerie silence made her feel exposed and vulnerable. The silence felt like it was screaming out for healing, it had been since they left the castle in ruins. Since her son was murdered. Since she became a murderer. No matter how the narrative was twisted, souls were lost this week and none of it was comforting enough for her to find happiness and pleasure in the safety of the wizarding world, and the defeat of the death eaters. 

Molly straightened herself up and looked directly at the carving in the tree. 

> **_Alastor Moody. ??-July 27,1997._ **

The kids hadn’t known how old he had been, but they took the time to immortalize him in a tree. He’d have hated that, which made her smile a little. She rummaged in the purse she was carrying, looking for something she’d brought for this purpose. After a moment, she withdrew a small knife and gingerly approached the tree. For several minutes her hands worked at the bark, carving. 

> And when the broken hearted people living in the world agree
> 
> There will be an answer, let it be
> 
> For though they may be parted, there is still a chance that they will see
> 
> There will be an answer, let it be   
>    
> 
> 
> -The Beatles, 1968

When she finished, she stared blankly at her work, thinking hard on the year she’d carved deeply into the tree, with reverence. That was the year her life changed. She fell in love, lost herself, and learned how to live with intent. It was the start of who she was to this day, and for that year she was eternally grateful.

“I fought, Alastor,” Molly finally whispered. It was like she was telling him a secret. “Tell Gideon I fought, and I did it well. Tell Genny I listened to her, I didn’t let the world crumble, I didn’t let the fear get to me.” The hot tears fell as she stood there, listening to her own heartbeat in her ears and the raspy, gasps of breath fill her lungs. “Tell them all that the world is better because they taught me how to be brave. Have Fred tell them about how brave the kids were. I bet he’s up there beaming, bragging about Ronald being his brother and all. I can hear him say it, too. Just like I did last week.  _ That bloke, the ginger one with the pie, that’s my brother. He defeated the Dark Lord and all that, made that snake-face-dimwit think twice about living forever. I’m gonna give him ten galleons to put me in his Order of Merlin Speech.” _

She slowly kneeled down, leaned her back against the tree, and closed her eyes. The sound of the leaves rustling reminded her of a simpler time, one with less war and blood. Suddenly, she drifted into an un-lived memory, a ghost of made-plans and promised forevers. Her head lay in Alastor’s lap and he’s looked down at her with that lopsided grin and his playfully-scrunched nose. His finger pushed a stray curl from her face and he laughed, an annoying sparkle in those green eyes. She couldn’t hear it anymore, not like she used to. But she could feel it. She could feel the happiness he had once promised her in the kitchen of her childhood home. She could remember it all, she could hear herself humming:  _ I can still recall, our last summer... _


	2. Coffee With Firewhiskey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Molly and her brothers have breakfast with Alastor.
> 
> "I can still recall our last summer  
> I still see it all  
> Walks along the Seine  
> Laughing in the rain  
> Our last summer  
> Memories that remain" (ABBA, 1980)

Growing up as a Prewett had its benefits, one being that when you woke up you were greeted with a hot cup of coffee and a plate of toast with jam. The other side to that shiny galleon was that there was a stream of light shining into your eyes through the curtains when your step-mother charmed the window with Lumos Solem.

“Molly Rowena Prewett,” the woman said sweetly. “It’s time to be up and moving. Your brothers are visiting this morning.”

Molly loved her name, she was named after Rowena Ravenclaw, an ode to her mother’s house-pride, but every time it came out of Harriet’s mouth Molly wanted to curse her. 

“They would understand that fabricated sunlight at five in the morning is an extreme, Harriet,” Molly complained to her step-mother. 

It might have sounded disrespectful to speak this way, and she knew she would hear about it later, but she didn’t care because when she looked at the clock on the wall, it read 5:15. It was the summer after 7th year-- it was her last summer to be a person before entering medi-witch training in the fall--and she was being forced to live by her step-mother’s schedule. 

“Your brothers will be here soon, and your father is on his way home, so I suggest you find yourself downstairs. Get yourself dressed and go eat your toast,” Harriet retorted. It wasn’t rude, which infuriated Molly. Harriet was never rude, she was perfect.

She reached for her own wand and flicked the curtains closed to dim the light in her eyes. She didn’t lay back down, she knew better. Instead, Molly shifted on the bed and put her feet onto the floor. Her deep-blue slippers were a gift from Fabian for graduation. He called them an homage to mother, and Molly loved them. The crimson robe she wrapped around herself had been from Gideon, his explanation being that she may love blue the most because it was mother’s favorite, but she must never forget one thing: You are a brave lion, Molly Rowena and you were made to be great.

The material wrapped around her and felt herself become suddenly warmer as the charmed robe activated. She didn’t bother dressing yet, it was barely five in the morning. Clothes could wait, coffee could not.

“If the Americans have done anything right,” she decided as she exited the room with Harriet. “It’s coffee. I love tea, it’s perfect for afternoon, but coffee in the morning is the most wonderful thing.”

Molly was two steps from the bottom of the stairs when she finally looked away from Harriet. 

“Molly, dear, we’ve been telling you you’re wrong on this for years. Never start your morning coffee without fire-whiskey involved,” Gideon teased. His wild-orange hair was sticking up everywhere and his ever-present mischievous smile crept across his lips. It was good to see him.

“Dunno, Gids,” Fabian chimed in. “I am partial to adding butterbeer to coffee.”

“You’re both delusional,” a strong voice followed. “It’s not about the additive, it’s about the base. Tea is better, it’ll relax you and start your day productive and all that.” 

Her blue eyes widened and her arms wrapped tightly around herself. There, standing in the foyer, bright-eyed and cheery, were her two brothers and Alastor Moody, the three most promising Aurors of their time (according to the Daily Prophet, the minister, and her own father). Her face was as bright as her hair, the flush in her face hiding every freckle she had. 

The first instinct she had was to turn on her heel and apparate back up to her room, but Harriet would think that both unbecoming and too noisy. So, instead, she smiled faintly and turned around, slowly walking back up the stairs. When she was out of view, she all but ran to her room and shut the door. Her back pressed against the cool-mahogany long enough for her to revive herself after being slaughtered by embarrassment.

It shouldn’t have taken her so long to pick out her blue-floral dress and pull half of her orange hair back with a clip, but she needed a second to gather herself. She put on her mascara and lipstick. When she looked in the mirror she looked directly at her freckles and, not for the first time in her life, was tempted to charm them away. Though, if she did her brothers wouldn’t let her live it down. No matter how many times she insisted they looked like Dragon Pox, they said they were what made her beautiful. 

Before she went back downstairs, Molly slipped on a pair of heels. She rushed back down the stairs, adjusted the peter-pan collar of her dress, and re-entered the newly-empty foyer. She inhaled the warm-June air and was surprised by how easy it was to smell the curses on the boys. It made her wonder what they had been doing the moments before they had arrived there.

She sauntered into the kitchen where the boys were gathered. Harriet was nowhere to be seen, which made Molly relax a little. The boys were chattering on, so she just settled into the groove. Molly buttered her toast. She picked up on something about some muggles in London finding themselves stuck to the ceiling of their flats. She reached for a mug to pour herself some coffee whilst she listened, but before she could grip a handle, a mug slid in front of her.

“Two cream, a sugar, and no fire-whiskey,” Alastor noted, talking lower than the brothers were. He was probably just trying to keep her from listening to auror business, but it still startled Molly; she wasn’t really sure how he knew how she took her coffee. 

“Thanks, Moody,” she said quietly, still trying to focus on what Fabian was saying. Her hands wrapped around the mug, and she sipped her coffee while she listened. Gideon was crooning on about how they were in a slight bit of trouble now. Turns out, the three of them had just come from the ministry. They had to report to the head of their department after they met Arthur Weasley at a muggle house to investigate what had happened. Seemed to be more than just being stuck to a ceiling. She listened intently, but they lowered their voices, so didn’t really understand what they were saying. She also observed that they were leaving out details of their ventures.

“You’re going to medi-wit--” 

Alastor was cut off when her father apparated in the kitchen. 

Gideon and Fabian stopped talking immediately and glanced over at their father. 

“Good morning, Mols. Harriet will need you soon, I am sure. Boys, I just got the owl from the minister,” her father noted. His voice was stern and it made the hair on Molly’s arm stand up straight. This voice was reserved for lectures, punishments, and bad news. She didn’t know which of those scenarios it was this time, but her brothers clearly did. “Alastor, I’m glad you’re safe now, but I think it’s best you go check in with your mother now.”

Now? Molly was really curious this time, yet she knew better than to ask. Before she could even think about it, Gideon and Fabian dropped their toast and eyed Moody with a little bit of shame. Something had happened last night while they were out there, and she wasn’t sure she was allowed to know.

The three eldest Prewetts walked out of the kitchen and left Alastor and Molly alone. Mr. Prewett expected Alastor to leave, so Molly put her mug down and started to gather the plates that had toast on them. He was watching her, she could tell. 

“Dad doesn’t know you’re not speaking with your mum?” Molly asked him, glancing up at him as she put the plates into the sink. She would clean them later. On the outside, her voice was quiet, but it was steady and seemingly confident. Inside, she was cursing her father for leaving her here with Alastor Moody. 

“There’s a lot your dad doesn’t know, Prewett,” he said to her. The way he said that made her queasy, like she’d hit a nerve she thought he’d already covered up. No, apparently it was still an open, and very tender, wound. 

“I didn’t mean--I just figured he’d know you’ve moved out,” she retorted with a little less confidence. 

She picked up the mug again and took a drink of her coffee just for something to do with her hands. Molly looked across the counter at him. His auburn hair framed his face, and she decided that he needed a haircut, it would allow his green eyes to be seen more. 

“You're doing that thing where you just shove it off, but you know if he knew about you leaving he wouldn’t be so weird about you spending so much time here. Mum loved having you here, and she knew.”

They all missed her mother. The compassionate woman had always welcomed Alastor into their home, but most especially after they had learned Alastor’s mother chose to align herself with leaders who caused severe harm to others. From what Gideon had shared with Molly, Alastor’s mother recently found someone new to support, and the rumors were that this man was more than just some elitist jokes on muggles. It was more dangerous, and now that she was older she understood what a danger wizards pose to muggles.

She was glad he couldn’t read her mind, he hated pity. 

Moody shook his head at her and took his cup of tea to the sink, clanking the cup on the plates she had just placed there. He dumped the tea and put his hands on the edge of the sink. He looked out the window that was centered on the wall. Molly knew that he would be looking out at the tree-line and the horses in the pasture were most likely galloping to the barn where the house-elves would have been feeding them. Molly’s nose crinkled at that thought, knowing that she would have preferred to do the chore herself, but that was against Harriet’s rules.

Molly heard herself vocally scoff at the thought and instantly regretted it. 

Moody turned around quickly and snapped at her. “Something funny, Molly?” 

Her eyes widened and her heart sank a little, but she shook her head. He was known for his temper, and she wasn’t keen on being on the wrong side of that. 

“No, Alastor. Nothing is funny. I was just--I’m not always thinking about you,” she decided. Her impulse to retort in defence would probably be dangerous for her one day. Today, it just meant Moody took a step towards where she was at the counter. 

“You Prewetts don’t think before doing anything, do you?” he asked. There was something more to what he was saying, and she instantly knew it had something to do with whatever happened this morning. The real sun had risen and there was a bit of a halo around his head. In the right light, the auburn in his hair was highlighted to seem a little orange. Molly wondered if that was natural, or if it was nature's funny way of making him look just a little like his chosen family.

“Is that why father is upset?”

“Your father is upset because he is too thick to actually do his research before drawing conclusions,” Moody noted. “It wasn’t even Fabian’s fault. Someone gave a Malfoy a little too much freedom in the ministry and your brothers caught him doing exactly what he wasn’t supposed to. Just fixed Malfoy’s bloody mess, they did. The Ministry hired a ferret and the stench isn’t as hidden as the minister would like it to be.”

Molly could feel his frustration, it was palpable. Something had happened. 

Alastor glanced at the door, and she knew he was wishing to be in the library hearing the same lecture her brothers were. Honestly, if Moody were there it would have been fitting; he was always with Gideon and Fabian. The three of them really should share all consequences equally. 

“So, Lucius is wreaking havoc again? Nothing new.” 

Maybe Moody would tell her what happened. 

“Yeah, let’s call it that, Olly,” he snapped. The anger wasn’t directed towards her, so she wasn’t insulted, but she wanted to know more. What was getting under Alastor’s skin?

She took her shot at gathering information after another sip of coffee.

“Say what’s bothering you, Alastor. It’ll make you feel better.” Molly sounded a little like her own mother, coaxing information out of someone with the truth--clearing your chest makes you feel safer, more relaxed. “You can trust me. You know I’m not going to tell anyone.”

It was clear that Alastor took a moment to think about whether he was going to share with her. He had known her almost as long as he’d called her brothers friends. Maybe that was why he was hesitant to share: she was the annoying little sister. It was, afterall, confidential and they both knew the consequences if someone found out. He did need to talk, though. Fabian and Gideon were just as much his brothers as hers. He wanted to be with them during this conversation which meant it was probably important. She decided to make it easier for him to offer more information.

“I can smell the curses on your jacket,” she told him. She put her cup back down and touched his arm, looking up into his eyes. There used to be a twinkle, but now they were always worried about something. He took on a lot of responsibility he didn’t need to, trying to clean up after his mother. “If something happened with Lucius, you can tell me. Tell me about it, Alastor.”

“You’re a nosy git, Olly,” he told her. His eyes looked at her hand, but he never pulled away. “Just know that Lucius Malfoy has privilege, and a different privilege than all of this.” 

Moody gestured to the grand kitchen they were standing in. The silence stood still for a moment and Molly could tell that was all she was going to get from him. He was loyal to a fault, and she wondered if that was part of the reason her father struggled to trust Alastor. 

“I’m not nosy, but I am right. You should talk about it,” she decided. While she was talking, his hand touched the top of hers and he pursed his lips. It was like he was thinking about how to word his next sentence. That couldn’t be it, though: Moody never thought before he spoke.

“Drop it, Molly,” he finally decided. He was almost as stern as her father had been, so wondered if she could charm Alastor like she did her father and brothers. 

She smiled sweetly and shook her head. 

“I don’t give in, Alastor.”

Their eyes met for a moment and she realized her hand was still on his arm. He must have realized this fact as well because his hand moved to sit on top of hers. 

“Just thank me for keeping your brothers out of trouble.”

Molly felt her stomach flip and she was cognizant of the fact that they were alone. Molly’s heart raced and the pounding traveled clearly to her ears. Alastor Moody took one step closer to her, leaned in and pressed their lips together. Her breath caught, her fingers gripped his jacket, and her whole body went numb. 

It wasn’t that she hadn’t imagined this a million times over the last ten years, but she never really expected him to allow it to happen. The moment felt equally like a million years and only seconds. Her school-girl crush on the broad-shouldered beater in Fabian’s year was no secret (no thanks for Gideon ratting her out two years ago!).

“I said to drop it,” Moody said. 

“Okay,” she breathed. “It’s dropped.”

They heard the shuffling of feet and she stepped back, catching the eye of Fabian as he entered the kitchen again. He looked defeated but quickly changed his facial expression the second he noticed Molly was watching and that Alastor was still there.

“You’ve got a little something--” Fabian informed Moody with a playful smirk. It seemed Fabian wasn’t surprised. 

Had Moody talked to her brothers? Her cheeks flushed a crimson color and she wished she could hide behind a giant.

Gideon shook his head and Fabian pointed to the corner of his own mouth. Alastor quickly wiped the lipstick from his bottom lip and picked up the bag he’d come with. With a crack he disapparated out without a word to Molly. Molly shot her brothers a cold look and hurried to leave the kitchen through the dining room entrance.


	3. Cinnamon Rolls and Tea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> World cups overlap in Molly's memory.

The sound of the children running down the stairs tore Molly from her thoughts. The news Arthur had brought from the ministry, that Alastor was going to be the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher this year, had propelled Molly into a hurricane of memories. It was like she had been sucked into a pensive and she couldn’t control when she entered. 

Molly found herself touching her hand to her lips softly, though she pulled away when Fred’s voice boomed through the house. It was hard not to relive those moments with fondness, even if they were short-lived.

Arthur must have noticed her startle at the kids because he looked up from the tickets he had been counting. He offered her that look he gave when she was too deep into her mind and he wished he could read her thoughts. It was the same look he had given her when they got the call about Ginny two years ago. He was worried for her, and she wished he wouldn’t look at her in such a way. 

“My love?” he mused, cocking his head to the side and watching her. She couldn’t help but think that his outfit looked ridiculous, but she didn’t say anything because he had beamed just hours earlier about how excited he was to wear his most fashionable muggle clothes to the cup. 

The weak smile she feigned was forced into a grin as she placed the pot of porridge on the long, oak table and ran her opened hand across his back. Molly did this when she wanted to comfort Arthur; it always soothed whatever anxieties he had. She didn’t have time to tell him about what was muddling around in her mind even if she wanted to; the kids would be racing into the kitchen any second now, and they would be ravenous this morning. Molly and Arthur wouldn’t have much more alone time, so talking about it was off the table. It was a shame, really. It was rare they were alone anymore. 

“I’ve made your favorite. Porridge with brown sugar,” she said, diverting the conversation away from his worry. It was not his favorite, but she let that joke disapparate into the air. She was lucky the kids were up and trampling down the stairs.

“C’mooooon Ronald!” Fred shouted. “Mum got us up fifteen minutes ago.”

“Yeah, C’mon Ronald. You’ll never be as beautiful as us, may as well not try,” George echoed, scolding of their younger brother. From the sounds of it Ronald was still asleep. “Lee is waiting for us and if we’re late he’ll never marry me.”

“You two hush it, get your breakfast,” Molly instructed with a sharp tone. “And leave your brother alone.” 

The youngest Weasley rushed past, her long hair sticking up in all directions. 

“Ginevera, get yourself put together. Brush your hair, you look like a crazed niffler,” Molly instructed. “Or at least put it up.”

“If I were a niffler I could afford to buy the Ireland kit I wanted,” Molly heard Ginny mumble. That hurt Arthur, Molly could tell by the way he stood from the table and opened his arms to create a distraction. When Arthur was uncomfortable, he diverted attention away from the thing that made him feel unimportant or unworthy. Molly had known and loved him long enough to know that he wasn’t great with conflict, but he was amazing at making the world feel like a more pragmatic world.

“What d’you think?” Arthur directed his question towards Harry Potter, Ronald’s best friend who had joined them right before Ron had. “We’re supposed to go incognito -- Do I look like a muggle Harry?”

Molly didn’t hear the answer Harry gave Arthur over the sound of the twins roaring about Viktor Krum and his magnificent balance. Molly would never understand the logistics of quidditch, though she hadn’t been to a proper game to recall the most basic of rules since the summer of 1968. 

There was an uncomfortable pause. Her body stood still in the kitchen and she absorbed herself with a momentary reflection on watching the Soviets rush by in their crimson robes. 

The kids didn’t notice her small absence within the chaos, but she was ripped back in when she heard Ginny squeal at a manufactured ear that had dropped from the ceiling and Ron asked her a question. 

“Mum, Hermione down yet?” Ron asked, pulling Molly from another flash of a memory. She glanced at him quickly--he was wearing jeans and a t-shirt, and his hair was sticking up in at least ten places. Molly looked around and scrunched her nose, smelling something strange. Along with the ear, something was stinking up the kitchen. 

“Fred. George.” Her head snapped towards the twins; hervoice was stern and she didn’t answer Ron just yet. “If you take those to the cup, I swear to Merlin there won’t be enough of you left to get on that train this year.” 

Molly thought she had confiscated their entire stock yesterday. Apparently she was completely wrong. She really was convinced they were wasting their good brains which was a disappointment. Molly turned to Ron and finally answered him. “Ronald, dear, she’s brushing her teeth.”

Molly realized that she sounded almost exactly like Harriet. It was a strange observation. Sometimes she heard her own mother in her voice, but the times Harriet came out with fury she felt a pang of guilt. Molly shuddered.

“Us? We have nothing,” the twins echoed. 

“Mrs. Weasley,” a soft voice chimed as they came into the kitchen. “I finished packing the lunches this morning. Ginny showed me where the bread was and I thought it’d be helpful.”

“You’re sweet, Hermione. I appreciate the help.”

“Mr. Weasley, your outfit is...lovely,” Hermione acknowledged. Harry and Arthur were still talking about the purpose of the breast pocket. Molly and Hermione both watched the conversation for a second; Harry was trying so hard not to burst into fits of laughter. Hermione giggled a little and sat next to Ginny at the breakfast table.

Molly liked Hermione which made Ron’s small obsession sweeter. Molly wanted the best for her children, but especially Ronald. She wanted someone who would make him feel seen, and Hermione’s hospitality and authenticity would keep him in line. It was helpful that she was bright, but she was also a good choice. Hermione was a safe girl. Bright, brave, and safe. 

The chaos of the morning went on, but there was still some kind of order while they all grabbed for toast and porridge. There was very loud chatter about the upcoming game, complaining about Ron stealing the last bit of jam, and placing chore-bets on the game. From the outside of the family, it probably looked almost primal, but to Molly, it was a cultivation of her life and love with Arthur. Their family was perfect, even with all of its flaws.

Eventually the lot trotted across the front lawn with laughs and excitement. Molly was glad Arthur didn’t push her to go. He had all the kids for the whole weekend, and the alone time would be appreciated.

The quiet of the morning allowed her to reminisce a little. While gathering the dishes to place in the basin, she lost herself in the remembrance of her last quidditch game, the one where she’d decided she would go to as many matches as she could only for the warmth of the man who took her.

\--

It had been June of 1968 and Australia hosted the World Cup. Fabian and Gideon wanted to go, so they took time off work and planned a weeked with their father. They would borrow the family tent and Moody would come alone. 

Molly was invited, but she refused. No, she didn’t just refuse, she vehemently declined.

“I am not spending three days in a tent.” 

Molly was making up an excuse. The reality was, Alastor hadn’t said anything to her since he kissed her last week. The memory of it was fervent and still yet, somehow, chaste. When she thought about the kiss she felt her pulse quicken and her mind wandered to what it might have felt like to have his hands on her waist. Every time she let herself think about it, she had to tear herself back to the reality that he didn’t really want her, he just didn’t want to answer her questions. He hadn’t come around, but if he wanted to, like really wanted to, he would have taken the time to send an owl once in a while. 

Gideon rolled his eyes, his ankle crossed over his leg while he was reading the Daily Prophet. The cover had a moving picture of the minister. The headlines were telling about how there were muggles disappearing throughout Europe, a large number of them going missing in France near a colony of Veelas. There was speculation that the Veelas were involved, but Molly wasn’t really sure if that made sense. Molly’s best friend, Genevieve Dumas, was part Veela and there was nothing dangerous about her. 

“Molly, just send him a bloody owl,” Fabian told her, leaning against the doorframe. “It’s not like he’s not thinking about snogging you all the time. Trust us, we’ve been in that mind of his.” Fabian stuck his tongue out in disgust and stole a glance at Gideon.

“It’s true, we had mandatory occlumency training the day after we were here and I had to be his partner,” Gideon casually added. “He was into it. But don’t worry, Mols, we’re okay with it, if that’s your worry.”

Molly scoffed and crossed her arms tightly over her chest and shot a glance that could have petrified her brothers. 

“If he wanted to speak to me, he would have,” she shot back. 

“You’re really damn thick for someone who got nine N.E.W.Ts,” Fabian shot back with just as much power. “He's got things. Just come to the cup, Molly. The Soviets are going to crush France and you’re going to want to be there to see it.”

At some level, Molly knew he was right. She loved watching quidditch, even if she didn’t understand. The players were usually fit, and the grace the players had on the broom made her feel like she was watching a ballet of wits. 

“Fine. I will go, but it’s only because Genny will be there.” Molly stood from her seat across from Gideon and walked out the door, taking pleasure in having the last word, even if it was giving into the curiosity of what Alastor had been doing, and for the chance to double check that he was safe. Their work, it was dangerous to say the least. 

A week later, Molly was packed for the weekend. She brought an entire trunk of clothes with her and there was no doubt that her brothers would make fun of her, but it was Australia. She was convinced that she was going to get time to go out on the town and see something new. The trunk was filled to the top with trousers, shoes, and dresses, all of which she would wear whilst she and Genny wandered around the Cup avoiding the stern looks of her brothers. 

“Merlin, Molly,” her father said as she levitated the trunk down the stairs. “Are you moving to Australia?”

“No, she’s just seeing her boyfriend, so she has to make sure she looks lovely and all that.”

Molly brushed Fabian’s comment off as the three of them popped out of the house and landed in a hot, dusty terrain. Red dirt stirred under them as the magic of apparation swirled the air around them. Her trunk dropped and she slapped Gideon on the arm. 

“Hey, I’m not the one who ratted your snog session out to dad,” he defended. 

“What? He knows?!” she asked, her eyes wider now. She was mortified. 

“What, he asked why Moody hadn’t left when he was told. You know I can’t lie to dad,” Fabian explained. “I don’t like to lie, anyway. It’s not good for the skin, it’ll give me Hippogriff feet in the corners of my eyes. I have to keep myself pretty for Genny.”

Molly had nearly forgotten that Fabian and Genny had been together, and she hated that it meant she wouldn’t be going out with Genny but would instead be abandoned for her brother and her best friend to have their own snogging session. Sure, it was great that her best friend would soon be her sister, but she was indignant that she would have to sit around, alone. 

Molly offered a cold look to her brothers and stomped ahead towards the registration. She may have been throwing a slight tantrum, but she wouldn’t let him speak to her like that and stay around. 

Forty-five minutes later they were checked in, the tent was set up, and she still hadn't spoken a single word to her brothers. Her trunk was finally unpacked in her room and a boom of laughter came from the livingroom of the tent. 

“Bollocks,” Fabian laughed. “You did not throw a blast-ended skrewt at Lucius! What did he do?”

Molly stormed out of her room, wand in hand. She was ready to hex her brother, but she was stopped in her tracks, staring in the face of Alastor Moody. He had a new laceration across his cheek. It was fresh, she could tell by how pink it was against his olive skin.

Molly felt Genny’s eyes on her, though she wasn’t sure when her friend had arrived. In the last twenty minutes, at least. Fabian’s arms were wrapped around the Veela’s waist, kissing across Genny’s bare shoulder. Molly was suddenly very aware that she was wearing the off-the-shoulder shirt she’d gotten last week to annoy Harriet. 

“Your boyfriend is here, you come to say hi?” Gideon’s voice was muffled. “He’s been off pissing off Malfoy, but took a break just to see your pretty little face.”

Alastor kicked Gideon and Molly finally exhaled. This was about to be a very stressful weekend. 

\--

“Mum, the porridge is gone,” a deep voice said, dropping the spoon, clanking it against the pan and sighing. “Must mean Ron was here.” 

Molly was torn from 1968 for the second time that morning, but when she looked up she felt her heart race again. Seeing that fang earring did grind her gears, she wouldn’t lie, but it was wonderful to have those soft, green eyes at home again. She usually hated his long, red hair, but she appreciated that, when not in a ponytail, it hid the earring. Though, at that length, his hair reminded her of his father when he was younger, which made her want to cut it. 

“You, Percy, and Charlie aren’t eating oatmeal,” she told her eldest son. “I’ve got cinnamon rolls and milk with breakfast tea.”

“Did I hear tea?” Charlie said as he entered. “Well, you didn’t say tea, but I vote we go for tea over milk.”

He was wearing a white t-shirt and a pair of jeans. Molly could tell that he’d been spending time with muggles, and it was a good look for him. Charlie always fit in better with the people who lived on the fray. At first, it bothered her and worried her, but the older he got and the more time she spent observing Charlie the more she understood that he did belong with the grace of dragons--no person would ever be good enough to fill that need and thrill of adventure. His dragon tattoo moved from his back and down his arm, something that would never stop surprising her. The tattoo was a new addition last summer, and the artist who had done it was a muggle born who had added magic to their art, allowing the ink to dance across a small section of skin. 

“Charlie can have the tea, but I want a coffee. Two cream, one sugar, firewhiskey,” Bill grinned. He was clearly anticipating what his mother would say. 

“WIlliam Fabian Weasley,” she played along. “You’re not taking firewhiskey at six in the morning. Wait for Ireland to win until you start drinking.”

“Fine, mum. I’ll wait until later,” Bill teased. “I’ll make sure to send you some owls in the midst of the celebrations. I know how much you love quidditch.”

“Tea is far superior to coffee,” Percy mused as he came in, wearing a muggle suit. He was very excited to take part in the cup, though Mr. Bagman has asked him to wait to come in until the Spanish started coming. Molly smiled at her son when he entered, but he offered her nothing in return. He was much more serious than he’d been before, which said a lot about what working at the ministry had done to him. 

“I don’t think I will stay, though, mother. I have much to do, and they want to make sure that there is no one sneaking in without a ticket. It would be wasteful and unfair,” Percy said. It was like he was quoting someone else. “Equity is not also equality. We must be fair.”

“See ya, Perce,” Bill dismissed. “I’ll save some firewhiskey for you later.”

Percy disapparated with a mug of tea and Molly turned back to Bill and Charlie.”

The three of them had a small, quiet breakfast and Molly couldn’t help but feel the happiest she had in a moment. They talked about their work: Bill was going to Ethiopia this next week for some curse breaking in some tomb, and Charlie was headed to Romania to choose which dragons would be going to Hogwarts this school year for the tournament. It was barbaric, honestly, and her face told Charlie just that--it was the same look she’d given him when he told her that he was going to raise dragons.

Charlie rolled his eyes and took a long drink of breakfast tea and Molly felt him watching her. He spoke again, though this time with frosting on his lip. 

“Mum, don’t do that thing where we worry you too much. Just have a quiet weekend to yourself without thinking about our demise. We’re safe. It’s just quidditch,” Charlie assured her. 

Molly forgot how good Charlie was at sensing weird shifts in moods; sometimes she thought he was an empath. That would actually explain how he could get so many dragons to love him. Sure, he had some burns and scars on his arms, but overall, he was the best at taming those big ones. Molly knew that because she had read all the articles published about him in the Scamander Magi-zoology journal. 

“Mum, you okay?” Bill asked, reading into Charlie’s words. He reached across and touched his mother’s hand. It was wrapped around the coffee mug she was drinking. The content was identical to his own, and she felt the churn in her heart. Bill’s eyes locked on hers and she offered a comforting smile. 

“I am just happy to have my two favorite men here with me,” she said. Her hands pulled back away from her son’s and she gathered their dishes. As she passed the two she kissed the tops of their heads. The dishes she had gathered before were cleaned with a wave of her wand, and she wiped her hands on the bee-covered apron that wrapped around her waist. “You should be getting on to help your father herd your brothers.” 

Charlie nodded and Bill stood. 

“We will see you later, mum,” Bill said to her. “We’ll come back and make sure to stay a few days so the chaos of the kids isn’t too much. We know they won’t be able to contain himself.” 

Bill was the typical, responsible eldest. It was in part due to his age, but the other factors were for sure his growing up around more adults than the others--Bill had spent so much time with Marlene, Alice, Lily, and the other mothers during the first war that he was bound to have absorbed some semblance of their responsibility and empathy simply by proxy. 

Molly appreciated the sentiment, but she knew that wouldn’t happen. She smiled up at them and wrapped her arms around them in a hug, pulled back, and then shooed them off. 

“You’re going to miss registration. It’s nearly eight and you want to make sure you’re able to stop in Diagon Alley for your father. He needs you to pick up those scarves for the game. It’s cheaper in the alley than at the game, we all know that. And the kids will appreciate having the Ireland paraphernalia. Make sure that you pick a Bulgarian kit up for Ron, and a Ireland kit for Gin too. Take the gold from my account. I’ve sold some knitted sweaters so he could have one, but don’t tell them it was from me.” 

The two men walked out the front door less than an hour later. Molly stood in the frame and watched, thinking only of the night she had so quickly forgiven and kissed Alastor Moody under the crimson fireworks of the 1968 cup winning celebration.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We love a Charlie with tattoos. :)


	4. Take a Chance (on Me)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Both Quidditch Cups (1968 and 1994) end with surprising results.
> 
> "I never needed anything more  
> Whispers of "Are you sure?"  
> "Never have I ever before"  
> But I can see us lost in the memory  
> August slipped away into a moment in time  
> 'Cause it was never mine" --Taylor Swift (i.e. mskingbean89)
> 
> (Tw: insinuation of sexual activity, but nothing explicit or NSFW)

Muffled voices faded out of earshot after a group of school-aged kids walked by their tent. She could tell they were school-aged because they were going on about wanting to get back to Hogwarts to play so they, too, could one day be in a world cup. Molly shifted in her bed, keeping her eyes closed and laughing at their ambitions through her nose. It was absolutely not something anyone did, at least not often. 

She paused and listened to the silence in her room for a moment, trying to process if her memory was real, or if she had simply fabricated the experience in a very vivid, very lustful dream. 

There was a chill on her shoulder when she remembered _exactly_ what had happened the night before. The memory was triggered by his warm hand draped over her waist, resting softly on her hip. She had been stone-cold sober, riding the high of the game and her long conversation with Alastor. 

With a sniffle and a shift coming from the body next to her, she realized that she had, in reality, brought Alastor Moody back to her bed last night. 

_“Are you sure?”_ he had asked her. 

“ _I’ve never needed anything more.”_

So, no, she didn’t just bring him back to her bed, she invited him in following a very long kiss at the door. The night slipped away from her, but it was coming back in small flashes of happiness. It had taken her a moment to muster up permission for herself to recall the previous night's events. Her mind sorted through quick flashes of his hands on her waist pushing up the hem of her shirt, his lips on her neck as he pushed her against the door, and then everything else. 

As she thought about it, Alastor rolled over onto his side and faced her, his eyes still closed

Molly lay there still enough to be misconstrued for someone who had been petrified. Her eyes searched his face, registering the smudge of red lipstick on the corner of his lips. It was the mark and symbol of the first kiss that had ever made her pull back and gasp for air. It was fervent and healing, like the time that had passed after the kitchen was supplemented by their desire to be with one another. Not just _with_ one another, but near the other, touching and laughing, in whatever sense the other needed. Their friendship was culminating right here and Molly could do nothing to stop it. False. She didn’t want to do anything to stop or stall it. 

She claimed that she only kissed him in the excitement of the win. Well, that’s what she would tell herself if he chose not to talk to her again. Realistically, she kissed him because before the game he pulled her aside and apologized, genuinely. She kissed him again because when he looked at her she felt herself melt slowly into the dust beneath their shoes. She kissed him because of the way he held her hand while they walked up the steps to their seats. She kissed him because he would explain the extravagant quidditch moves to her throughout the game. She kissed him because, despite that feeling of abandonment, he had really and honestly been working--proof being the blisters she could see on his knuckles. 

“ _I can heal those for you if you wanted_ ,” she had offered the night before when he slid his hand over hers on the walk back to the tent. Molly’s fingers traced the pattern of the wounds and thought about the dittany that she always kept in her purse. 

He, of course, denied her offer. Alastor claimed that he liked how tough it made him seem. From the looks of it, though, they were the result of a pretty powerful curse, would need to heal on their own and would leave some scars. Magic wouldn’t do much but lessen a little of the discomfort they were causing. 

While he faced her, he was breathing more shallow than she thought Alastor Moody ever would. He was peaceful and quiet--a state she was surprised existed for him. He was always moving, seeking the next big adventure. When he breathed in, his nostrils flared just a little. The intake of oxygen seemed to make his cheekbones sharper and contours of his face were so evident in the morning light, the dust dancing around them in the air made her feel a strong desire to kiss him. Instead, she made the choice to get up and shower. 

Molly shifted a little, suddenly very awake and very aware of how exposed she was in the brimming light of the morning. She prepared to sneak out with the intention of letting him forget they were currently tangled in a net of intimacy. Her leg tried to pull away slowly so she could escape without him waking. 

“First you stare at me, then you’re sneaking out and abandoning me. I knew you were a vixen, Prewett, but I didn’t take you for someone who would leave a man high and dry without a goodbye kiss,” she heard him accuse groggily, his eyes still closed. She startled at his address, but she let herself take a much needed pause to think before she pushed up on her left elbow to rest her head on her hand.

It was impossible not to feel her pulse pound in the pit of her stomach. Her heart lurched from her chest and she caught herself fighting not to run away _right there_ . The last time she woke up with someone in her bed like this she _instantly_ regretted it. But she didn’t regret this. Though, she couldn’t help but wonder if he would. 

He continued speaking, slowly opening his eyes and smiling at her with a playfulness she was sure only she had seen before--Alastor Moody was always _so serious_. His knuckles were still covered in blisters. He brushed them lightly against her arm and she shivered, feeling her spine shudder in comfort. They were rough, but the genuine affection and placidity he seemed to manifest with his hands made her skin flutter. She needed to be careful not to fall in love with Alastor Moody.

“Stay awhile, it’s early,” he suggested. “I won’t bite. Not unless you ask.”

Molly widened her eyes at him, dumbfounded and speechless at the addition to his suggestion. He chortled back at her, clearly enjoying how scandalized she was. 

Without any warning at all, he met her bottom lip, forcing her eyes to close with the contact of his. The kiss was another long moment of thoughtless-overthinking, an oxymoron she had yet to figure out. Every neuron fired both warnings and encouragement when he was this close to her.

“I’m kidding, Molly,” he whispered against her lips. His breath was warm and she anticipated him kissing her again. Their lips brushed, but they didn’t fully kiss again. Instead, he tucked an orange hair behind her ear and kissed her cheek.

“Alastor--”

“Don’t ruin a perfectly good morning with that Prewett overthinking.” He was right, that was what was happening. 

“I was going to say you should still let me heal these,” she lied. He would see through it, but she settled back into the mattress and he pulled her into his chest, his arms wrapping around her. Molly noted that he tugged the top of the sheet up so it was covering the two of them. Respectable. 

“No, you were going to ask if my being here was a mistake, if it was going to ruin everything. Or were you going to ask me to take you to dinner?”

The smile she was fighting back was evident, and she couldn’t distinguish between mortification or flattery with his audacious suggestions. They had flirted before, caught eyes and bantered, but he had never talked to her like this.

“So, Molly Prewett, are you going to kiss me and thank me for a dinner invitation, or do I have to do the walk of shame and tell your brothers I struck out? I’m not sure if my ego can take it, but you can have an out if you need it. You know, if it wasn’t good for you.”

Molly watched him speak, her chin tilted up and she took in every shift in his expression. There was a tinge of doubt settled in the corner of his lips. It was a vulnerability she had never seen from him before. Was Alastor Moody, the strong and confident Adonis of his year, showing insecurity while naked in her bed?

“Alastor, is that what you want from me?”

Her tone sounded less and less like she was interested and she didn’t know how to stop it from spiraling into chaos for either of them. They weren’t some random people who met in a pub and decided to stumble into a bed for a night. Alastor was her friend, her brothers’ friend, and she respected who he had become over the years. 

_“This is different from a school-girl crush, and it has been since last Christmas. Do we both feel that?_ ” She thought to herself.

“Molly, I’m not...you’re my best friends’ sister, I would never--” It was uncanny the way he vocalized her internal dialogue. It was like he could hear her thoughts. For a second she thought back to when Gideon told her they had practiced occlumency, but she couldn’t entertain that thought long without feeling like she could be manipulated. She had to trust him.

She felt a deep, sharp pang of guilt in her gut. He didn’t just want her in bed, did he?

“Alastor, I would be honored to have dinner with you.” For the first time, Molly moved first. Her hand reached up and brushed his auburn hair from his eyes, and when she leaned in she ended the conversation by creating the most _unbearably_ romantic moment. Molly Prewett kissed Alastor, and ignored the loud knocking on the door to her room.

“Molly!” It was Gideon’s voice and he sounded annoyed. 

There came the bang again and a rustling of the door handle. Apparently she and Alastor were smart enough to lock the door. Good. 

“The hell, Molly? C’mon, we’ve got to get going. We’re going to Sydney today and you’re going to make us miss our tour through the Dragon’s Exhibit at the museum. You’re the one who kept going on about wanting to see the moving skeletons or whatever.”

Whether she wanted to or not, she pulled back from where she had been more out of breath than she had intended. Alastor let out what she could only describe as a low, playful chuckle. His hands gripped her side playfully and tickled, causing her to let out a very surprised and vivacious laugh.

“Okay, Gideon, I am coming. Make me some coffee, yeah?” She responded between her giggles. In an attempt to escape his grip she swatted at his hands, unsuccessful. 

“Oh, and I want tea, no sugar,” Alastor echoed. Molly’s jaw dropped and she smacked Alastor’s shoulder.

The rustling of the handle stopped at the addition of Alastor’s voice. Gideon was probably putting several things together and Molly wished she cared about how annoyed this would make him. Except she didn’t, not in the slightest.

“Fuck, Moody,” Gideon groaned, slapping the door. “I was most literally in the room next door, dammit. Couldn’t even have the decency to take it somewhere else.”

“I don’t do the rough and wild thing, contrary to popular belief. Silencing charms are a doozy, though. You should teach them to Fabian,” Moody retorted.

Molly’s forehead fell to Alastor’s shoulder and she let out a playful laugh, trying to balance her pure enjoyment of how uncomfortable her brother was with masking her own embarrassment. She didn’t spend a lot of time in the beds of men (or women), but she wasn’t some chaste child anymore. She hadn’t been for a while. 

“I am going to curse you both. Make your own damn beverages. I’m leaving in twenty minutes.”

* * *

**_CRACK._ **

Molly had been sleeping when the clock on the wall chimed the same alarm she had woefully heard at least a dozen times in the last four years. _Mortal Peril._ The clock never lied and she’d been worried senseless for the last hour waiting for someone to come back home, her hands gripping the wrinkled Daily Prophet that had come early.

There was a loud sound of apparation in the distance. She hoped it was her family coming home. Owls had been coming in with news at all hours of the night. And the clock. The clock was going berserk and she wanted them home. Now.

Before she moved, the clock moved from _Peril_ to _In Transit_. They were coming home. 

“Arthur?” Her voice cracked in fear.

She couldn’t hurry outside fast enough. Coming over the hill was Arthur and a set of bobbing heads.

“One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine,” she counted quickly, making sure everybody arrived with her husband. 

Molly raced towards Arthur and flung her arms tightly around his neck, not considering whether he was physically prepared, or ready, for an embrace. She squeezed him tightly and buried her face into his chest. The tears burned past her eyes as she inhaled his scent with relief. Even with the acrid aroma of curses on his jacket, Molly could smell notes of pine, butterscotch, ink, and parchment. Arthur was alive, he was okay, and every single one of their babies had come home, too.

“I’ve been so worried,” she told him, finally allowing him to pull back from her clutches. Arthur cupped her cheek softly and kissed her forehead, secretly wiping the silent tears that had fallen from her eyes. He knew she didn’t like for the children to see her cry, and this meant she didn’t have to reach up and wipe them away where they could perceive just how overwhelmed she was by her fear.

When she stepped away from Arthur to squeeze the twins, much to their disdain, she watched Bill pick up the newspaper and look at the headline. 

“Ouch, mum, you’re strangling us,” the twins cooed. 

“You’re all right, you’re alive,” she declared. Her worst fear, not that she told anyone but Arthur this, was that she would lose them all in this mess of a world. Just like last time. “I shouted at you before you left the house, going on about those silly inventions. What if the last thing you remembered of me was how I was cross you didn’t get enough O.W.L.s, or that you thought I saw your talents as a waste of space.”

Molly looked around, suddenly aware that they were all outside. She herded them in, hugging each child tightly as they entered the home. Percy tried to fight it, but she made him hug her anyway. 

Hermione went right to work making tea without being asked, and Arthur went to the liquor cabinet. Both Bill and Arthur took a shot of Ogdens Old Firewhiskey and Charlie just found the cinnamon rolls and took a big bite, closing his eyes and leaning against the wall. He was thinking about something, but Molly couldn’t determine what could really be flying through his mind.

In that moment, Molly looked at Bill and Charlie, missing the entire conversation between Arthur and her three eldest sons. The boys looked so adult, but in her mind they didn’t feel like they could be grown, especially tonight. Was it possible that these two strapping, brave men were her sons who, just years ago, were chasing after each other singing Charlie’s Dragon song after visiting Aunt Tessy?

Bill’s eyes were tired, but his strong jaw, and the cut across his cheek, told her that he had left the match defending someone. Charlie’s jeans were ripped and his knee was bloody, and the twins, even, were a little torn up with holes in their shirts and dirt on the arms. Ron, Hermione, Harry, and Ginny all looked like they had a secret. They all must have been protecting someone. Her throat burned at the idea.

Percy, she noticed, was the only one who looked put together, still wearing that suit he had put on before he departed for the match.

When her eyes moved to Arthur she noticed the cuts on his hands that spanned from his wrist to his knuckles, like he’d been caught up in the brush of a thicket. Without even asking, Molly walked to the hook by the kitchen door that led to the garden. Out of her hand bag came a medium bottle of dittany. 

“I know it,” Arthur said, almost defeated. Molly sat next to him on the kitchen bench--Hermione placed a cup of tea in front of them. He read pieces of a news article aloud to the room. “Ministry blunders...lax security...dark wizards unchecked...Merlin, don’t they know that Rika Skeeter is a fraud, that fear-mongering--.” 

Molly shot a look at him and he stopped his words right there.

Percy said something that Molly didn’t catch and Bill told him to shut up. Bill’s voice caught like it did sometimes, in the way that made him sound like he knew more than the rest of the world. Bill always seemed wiser than his years, but in his curt retort at his brother, Bill’s understanding of the danger that was approaching seemed to be too clear. 

Molly hated that he had known danger since the second he was conceived. 

“Sit still,” Molly told Arthur, taking his hand and pouring the dittany on his wounds. Her thumb brushed against the skin. She heard his sharp inhale, but he didn’t pull away even in the pain of the healing.

“They mentioned me,” he continued instead. When Molly added a little more dittany, Arthur wiggled his fingers and hummed a low note while the stinging passed.

“I think I would have seen if they mentioned you. Wouldn’t have been so worried if I had known you were alive,” she said. She listened as Arthur read from the paper about how Skeeter was claiming he revealed that there were remains in the forest. 

“I am going to have to go to the office,” Arthur sighed. Percy interjected and said he would join. Molly didn’t like it in the slightest. 

“You’re on holiday, Arthur--”

“I’ve got to go, Duck. I’ve got to fix this. I have made it worse. I’ll go change. You kids, you should head to bed. You had a long night.”

The room went silent for a moment and everyone stared at Arthur intently, expecting him to say something else. 

“You heard your father-- off to bed, the lot of you,” Molly repeated with a clap of her hands. She gestured to the stairs, trying not to imagine what she would have done if one of them, even Harry and Hermione, hadn’t come home. 

“I will see you at the office, father,” Percy announced before popping out in a loud **crack.** Always working, that one.

The children shuffled off to bed. Bill and Charlie didn’t go, but they picked up the opened bottle of dittany and moved to the sitting room, giving Molly and Arthur a moment before he had to go into the Ministry. 

“You’re never allowed to scare me like that again,” she demanded, her voice stern now, but yet still shaking. 

“Duck, I am fine,” he said quietly. “We are all fine. I can’t--”

Molly searched his face, her worried eyes re-revealing themselves while her lip shook. She prepared herself to cry again. 

“Molly, I promise I’ll be careful and send you updates in the journal, okay?”

The journal was a gift from her brother, Fabian, when she was younger--it came in a set and what you wrote in one, appeared in the other. It could be cleared and reused, so Molly and Arthur had used it for years to communicate or leave each other notes throughout the day. 

Molly nodded, her arms tightening around his midsection into another hug before he had to leave. Arthur kissed her softly, sure to taste the salt on her lips now.

“I will see you soon.”

He went upstairs, changed into his robes, and took the Floo Network to his office. 

Molly took the immediate liberty of going to her bedroom, pulling out the journal, and writing him instructions.

> **_I love you. Be safe. Come home._ **


	5. Bad Blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Molly is visited by someone from her past, unveiling and forcing her to reflect on the hard choices she and her friends had to make as a young witches and wizards.
> 
> (TW: Adoption, suggestion of past violent event)

Tradition had it that after the kids went to school, Arthur and Molly spent that entire day together. Last year they went into London and went to the muggle shops. Arthur purchased her one of those machine-rings at the entrance of a shop and, most pleased with himself, placed it affectionately on her finger. 

When he had looked at her that night in the Muggle restaurant, Molly felt like Arthur was proposing to her all over again--he had a way of making her feel impossibly desired. Molly had dressed up in a billowing cherry-red dress with her hair pulled back into ringlet curls. A string of pearls that had once belonged to her mother hung from her neck, the white orbs cool on her skin. It was the only Black-family heirloom Molly’s mother kept. Arthur looked at her across the table and told her she looked like the Queen of England and genuinely meant it. 

That was the thing about her husband. He was honest and said really anything that he felt, at least to her. She found herself missing his company today; It was the first September 1st she spent alone since Bill had gone to school in ‘82. 

There was a small hope that maybe he had left her a note in the journal, but when she checked there was no such luck. Just blank pages and folded corners.

Molly’s day was quiet. She cleaned, made some sweaters to be sold at the muggle flea market two towns over, and pulled out some of their bills. She spent the majority of the afternoon allocating the correct amount of money to their creditors. 

They weren’t poor, but they were living pay-check to paycheck, and they were okay with that. The hardest part about making just _ enough _ was that she couldn’t give her children the extravagant childhood she had. Molly hadn’t been spoiled, Fabian and Gideon would have never allowed it, but she had dresses and shoes, traveled, and experienced life differently than her children ever would. 

They never asked about money, though, not anymore anyway. Bill would always give the younger siblings a stern look when they complained. Molly assumed it was because Bill found receipts to Saint Mungo’s about ten years ago. Stamped at the top of the parchment was a charge for 15 galleons a month. It was a lot, but someone had to take care of Gawain after the war; when Arthur proposed they foot the money for his brother’s medical expenses from the post-war trauma, she instantly agreed. Gawain had been close with Frank Longbottom, so it was melancholically fitting that he now spend the rest of his life two rooms down from Frank and Alice. 

Molly wrote the expenditures down on the ledger and watched the balance of their account clear out again. 

In the middle of her work, there was a knock at the door. Molly turned her eyes to the label on the wall where it told her who was at the door. The welcome mat registered  _ Kathleen Diggory-Bell  _ on the display. Molly wasn’t really sure she was prepared for the trip down memory lane, but she closed the folder of papers in front of her and stood from her place at the table. It would be rude not to answer.

The door opened with a turn of the handle, revealing a tall, well put-together witch. Her long, straight, black hair cascaded down her shoulder. With piercing brown eyes, Kathleen smiled, forcing her eyes closed a little when the apples of her cheeks raised.

“Kathleen,” Molly greeted her guest. “What’s brought you to Devon?”

“I saw Arthur at work and thought you might like some company.” Kathleen stepped into the house and took her glasses off of the flat bridge of her nose. Kat was going to be staying awhile, Molly knew her well enough to deduce this fact.

“I don’t need to be babysat, Kat.” Molly sometimes forgot that there were people other than Arthur who knew her, who could read her mind. “I don’t mind being alone.”

It was as if Kathleen wasn’t hearing a thing Molly was saying. The slender woman walked further into The Burrow.

“So, how are you Mols?” Kathleen inquired. The nickname made Molly flinch. It wasn’t a name used in her current life. That was a name for another time, another place. Another woman. Kathleen didn’t know  _ this  _ Molly well, mostly because Molly had all but shut Kathleen out after their apartment had been raided––Molly could still smell the charred flesh in the carpet and would like to ignore 1969, thank you very much. 

“I am not doing small talk with you, Kat. We’ve known each other too long for that rubbish.”

Kathleen wasn’t someone who allowed time for suggestions from other people. She moved into the kitchen and opened the liquor cabinet. Molly’s comment went unacknowledged. 

“Only merlot? Molly Prewett would have never been caught with only one bottle of wine.”

“Molly Prewett doesn’t live here.” That much she did know was true. Or at least not the Molly Prewett that Kathleen knew. “Molly Weasley can’t keep wine in the house because she has three sons who would smuggle it upstairs. They would blame the ghoul, but it would absolutely be them. Then I would have to repair something because someone would inevitably play exploding snaps too close to the curtains.”

“Kathrine plays that god-awful game,” Kathleen added, pulling out two long-stemmed crystal glasses and using her wand to uncork the deep-red wine. A small river flowed from the bottle, filling the glasses well above the suggested serving size.

“Fred and George say that Katie is the best player in their group. They had a tournament at the end of the term last year--they asked me to make a sweater for the winner with an exploding troll card in the center. I think Katie won. It’s a fine game and a good way to entertain the kids, just not near my curtains.” Molly paused, moderately annoyed that Kathleen was in her wine without asking permission. She was like that, she had always been like that. Act first on what she deemed proper, then ask questions later. “Kat, it’s three in the afternoon.”

“Yes, it is. There was a time we started drinking well before three.”

“We aren’t nineteen anymore, Kathleen. And Genny isn’t here,” Molly noted. “A lot has changed since we lived together in London.”

Kathleen’s eyebrow quirked up and she placed the glass of wine on the table next to the closed book. 

“That’s fair. You’re right, a lot of things have changed since London, but not everything. You can still be you, no matter what has happened since.”

“That’s easier for you to say, Kathleen, your family, your life--”

“My life what, Molly? What about my life?”

Kathleen hadn’t lost much in the war, not like the rest of them had. Her family made it out, unscathed. The biggest loss Kat had faced was the last time they saw Genny.

Kathleen took a long drink of wine and leaned against the counter. 

“We aren’t kids anymore, that’s all Kat.” Molly brushed off the conversation, but she knew that Kathleen wouldn’t let it go. Molly picked up the wine glass and took a sip, savoring the bitter taste with notes of cherry. It was her favorite wine, and had been for years. 

“Molly, I know we aren’t children. We’re both married with children. Our husbands are respectable and successful.” 

Molly had forgotten how important being  _ respectable  _ was to Kat. Kat always made it known that she disapproved of Molly’s choices. Kathleen had gone for the middle-class husband, the trimmed garden, and the fanciful job. Molly had William, raised her family, and left her past in London. It was different for the both of them, they valued different things.

“I am just saying that our lives never went the same way. You’re still Kat, I am still Molly, but we chose--”

Kathleen cut Molly off, probably choosing to read between the lines and fill in what Molly wasn’t saying, which was that they chose very different lives and priorities.

“--we chose what, Molly? We chose different lives, yes, but your life is not better than what I have. I chose a career and you threw one away, I waited to have a husband and a family, and you got pregnant and threw away your choices.”

Molly’s glass had been to her lips, taking a sip while Kathleen spoke, but she paused and watched her old friend. There was a time this conversation would have bothered her more, but now it was just annoying. 

“Please, do elaborate,” Molly prompted casually, masking her annoyance. Molly had known that this was how Kathleen felt for a long time, that she had looked down on Molly’s choice to keep Bill. but Molly had never regretted it for a second. And Arthur constantly assured her he didn’t regret their choice either.

“Molly, you earned nine N.E.W.T.s and were one of the greatest witches in our year. You were top of your medi-witch class and you let a pregnancy get in your way. You married so young, and so quickly. And now you’re what? Here while Arthur is tinkering around with muggle toys at work and the children are away?”

“I respect the decision you made, Kathleen, especially knowing your brother was joining the Ministry and how a child with Albert would have looked on your image at the time, but I am not you. I never much cared for image, and I couldn’t simply give my child away like you did. You may love Katie and Albert, and you may love the life you have made for yourself, but don’t you wonder what life you would have had?”

“Don’t you wonder what life you would have had, Molly?” Kathleen gestured to the home around them. “This is fine, you’re living, but don’t you wonder what it would have been like if you had chosen differently, let career drive you. Would you have chosen to settle for Arthur? Had seven children? Would you be here, or would you be the Chief at Mungos like you dreamed? Molly, you think me a monster for my choice, but I sent Kirley to a family who could support him, who clearly cultivated his talents in a way that maybe he couldn’t have if he had been raised by an unprepared teenager and her boyfriend who worked seventy hour weeks. My ambitions were important to me, and I sought after what I wanted, I chased my dreams.”

“Chased your dreams? Endless work weeks and fighting with your daughter about her career choices and grades is your idea of the perfect life?” Molly interjected. 

Kathleen scoffed and rolled her eyes at Molly. Had it been one of her children, they would have been de-gnoming the garden for a week for such disrespect.

“Molly, I am not a monster, I love my daughter and I support her within logic and reason. She’s never going to be a professional quidditch player, that is an asinine dream and we both know it. Children rarely make it to the professional leagues, and if they do it’s rare they make it to the cup and make anything of themselves.”

“But what harm is it to support her with that?”

“Do you support Fred and George with whatever collection of inventions they’re planning next? Do you support them wasting perfectly good potions talent on something like jokes and pranks. Oh, don’t look at me so doe-eyed and surprised, your children aren’t the only ones who talk about their friends over holidays.”

That was different, Molly was certain. It wasn’t the inventions Molly hated, it was the lack of care for the academics, what seemed like a lack of respect for the act of the magic the twins were performing.   
  
“Do you support Katie like you do your son? If you had raised him, would you have allowed him to form The Weird Sisters?”

“I love my son and I have followed his career, but I do think it’s frivolous and a waste of time. There’s not much value in screaming on a stage, but he isn’t really my son, not like Katie is my daughter. I didn’t raise him, but I do know that I did what was best by him giving him to the Dukes. They were good parents and loved him better than I could have at the time. And giving him up prepared me to love Katie just as powerfully as you love your children.”

Molly listened, but she didn’t say anything more because if she had she may have hexed Kathleen for insinuating that she should have abandoned Bill. For the first time in years, Molly wished that Genny were there to calm her down--that was her role in the group, mothering and mediating the tension between Molly and Kathleen’s strong and independent personalities.

Kathleen continued, not acknowledging Molly’s silence.

“Your life would have been different if you had allowed yourself to put who you were before anyone else, Molly. You spent so much time trying to be who your brothers, Genny, and Alastor wanted, but you never stopped to actually think about who you really wanted to be.”

“You don’t get to talk about them to me, Kathleen,” Molly replied curtly. “I am exactly who I want to be. Don’t project your own doubts onto me. I am a mother, a wife, and a trained medi-witch who chose not to practice--yes, I keep up on my certifications. The life I am living is the life I want to live, not some life I have to live because I couldn’t cope with a choice. I made a choice, and you made a choice. Aren’t you sick of this same conundrum and argument? We aren’t twenty anymore, we already made our beds, so let us lie in them.”

“Molly,” Kathleen interjected. Her voice was nearly motherly, the same tone that Genny had once used towards them; it brought an equal amount of stress and relaxation to Molly, like something in her past came back to comfort her and punch her in the abdomen. It made no sense, especially considering the context and gravity of the conversation. “I am worried about you being here in your thoughts with nothing to do.”

“You always have been presumptuous,” Molly snapped, letting down the front of composure. “I’ve got purpose. I’ve got something to do.” There was another beat before Molly spoke again. “Speaking of purpose and the glory of work, shouldn’t  _ you  _ be at that big career you chose? I’ve heard your department should be pretty busy this week. Something about dark wizards you claimed didn’t exist anymore dangling muggles from the skies by invisible strings? Might want to get your department under control before trying to manage my life.” 

“My department is just fine.”

“As I said, I think you are missing such a grand career opportunity at The Ministry doing damage control.”

Molly’s wine glass was now empty and she placed it in the sink.

“Good day, Kathleen Bell. I will speak to you later."


	6. Bite Your Tongue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Molly, Kathleen, and Genny move into a new flat in Muggle London. As they're unpacking, some heavy topics change how they view one another in the midst of the current political climate.
> 
> (tw: alcohol use / mention of racism/blood-supremely)

“You would think that being wizards would mean moving houses was less work,” Gideon complained, falling onto the couch that was still in the middle of the flat. His legs were outstretched and his arms spanned across the back of the cushions. “But this was about one-hundred times the amount of work it should have been. And now I need a shower.”

“You always need a shower,” Molly countered quickly. “That constant stench of troll you’ve had since sixteen hasn’t dampened.”

Everyone but Gideon joined in a chorus of laughter. Instead, he tossed a throw pillow towards where Molly stood in the living room. Molly pulled out her wand her wand and sent the pillow right back to him. Seemed that the dueling lessons Alastor had been giving her were paying off in more than one way. 

“I still think we should have just used disillusionment charms to move all your shit up six flights of stairs instead of carrying boxes,” Fabian agreed, falling onto the couch with his brother. His hands wrapped around Genny’s waist as he fell, pulling her into the cushion with him.

“Babe, we live in a muggle building, that is about six hundred kinds of illegal,” Genny noted, swiping her newly-brown hair over her left shoulder. “And it takes away from the experience. It’s good for us.”

It was a well-known fact that Genny was an idealist; part of living in Muggle London was to scratch Genny’s itch of understanding their culture better. Molly wasn’t sure what she would learn, but it was bewitching to watch how enamored and captivated Genny became when she was experiencing something as mundane as a bus stop.

Genny had platinum-blonde hair naturally, and she constantly complained about how much she hated it, but Molly had always envied its near-iridescence. Muggles always assumed she was a stupid blonde, which was the furthest from the truth, and wizards could easily peg her as a veela. While Genny loved being the center of attention, she also valued privacy and anonymity and personal privacy on most levels. To counter the stereotypes, Genny colored her hair, making currently it a deep brown. Molly understood why Genny did it, though Kathleen was the first to comment on how Genny could use her bonus veela-magic to an advantage. Kathleen didn’t fully understand that Genny had come to Hogwarts and not Beauxbatons because she wanted to  _ be something other than that weird half-breed.  _

Molly was moved to the kitchen to start putting things together for tonight. She had been tasked with unpacking kitchen boxes first so she could make them something to eat. She heard Alastor chime into the conversation, his foot kicking the front door shut behind him as he entered the flat. She could hear him lugging her last box up the stairs, a little out of breath.

“You ladies could have waited until, I dunno, October to move into a sixth floor flat in Muggle London? It’s hot as a Dragon’s Ass out there,” Alastor complained. “You know, it would have made our lives about a hundred times easier.”

“It’s a good experience, Moody,” Genny reminded him. Molly could almost hear his eyes roll into the back of his head in response to her positivity. The move was a decision the girls had made knowing it would challenge them. All three of them had grown up in secluded wizarding communities, and that meant that they missed muggle culture entirely. “We’ll be learning about their culture, and we all know their music is  _ way _ better.”

Music was something that Genny had become obsessed with as a student in school. Molly had found it strangely cliche, but it rubbed off on her when Genny started collecting music back at Hogwarts when Hogsmeade opened the muggle music shop. Some muggle-born wizards had learned to calibrate the frequencies of an electronic record player with the presence of magic and were making tons of galleons off the new popularity of bands like The Beatles. 

“Agreed, way better,” Molly agreed, chiming in with a small bit of laughter. “Oh, Gen, I found a copy of Sing Everything Under the Sun. When I find it in my boxes, I’ll add it to the collection we’re gonna keep in the sitting room!”

“You’ll find the Paris Sisters, but not pick up The Doors?” Kathleen complained. “The Paris Sisters are so bland.”

“You have The Doors,” Alastor corrected Kathleen. “Because I bought Molly that when I was in the States last week.”

“Do you blame us for not wanting to promote them too much? I mean, your Ravenclaw-ass wrote a twenty-five centimeter essay on why we should hang a poster of Jim Morrison in the hallway,” Genny commented, cutting Kathleen off. “A bit obsessive, and I am not going to encourage such behavior.” 

Genny winked across at Alastor and Molly heard him laugh. This open concept flat with a kitchen and living room connection would be great for having guests over.

“And the answer is still no,” Molly reminded her. She put a box up on the island counter. Molly didn’t understand the appeal of having some poster of a guy staring at you all the time; it seemed like a waste of a space that could hold something more important, like pictures of family, art, or house plants. “Two against one, majority rules. We aren’t having some man stare at us in our towels, muggle picture or not. It’s giant and terrifying. Jimmy-Dear stays in your room.”

“What about if we made you a poster of Moody, Mols? Would you hang it up then?” Gideon teased, kicking his feet up onto a box. “You’d want him staring you down, yeah?”

Alastor’s wand flicked and the boxes Gideon had just looked to for a moment of relaxation slid quickly across the wooden floor. Gideon’s feet clamored to the hardwood floor and his body lurched forward in the slightest. He offered a small grunt and retorted with a swish of his own wand. Out came a light, but Alastor was too quick. 

“Protego,” he countered, sending another playful light towards Gideon. Gideon burst into a fit of laughter. 

“You two know that we don’t have curtains yet, right?” Genny noted, nodding her head towards the large window on the west wall. “And our apartment looks right out onto the main street.” 

Alastor’s wand slipped away, but Gideon waved his and a long piece of fabric appeared on the window. The coloring was hideous, so Molly made a note to find their curtains and hang them before she went to sleep.

“You’re taking away the magic of it,” Genny protested. “We’re going to go to find some beautiful curtains in the shops tomorrow!”

“And that’s why I will never live in a Muggle Town. That’s why I live in Holyhead, no muggles, no magical restrictions. I can do what I want and create all the curtains in my windows I desire,” Gideon pointedly revealed.

Molly was glad she was in the kitchen, because the look on her face was  _ shocked. _ That sounded like something her father would have said, not Gideon. She opened her mouth to reply, but someone else beat her to it.

“You do realize that makes you just as much of a twat as people like our grandmother who shit on Muggles and Half-Bloods,” Fabian shot. “By saying you support the movement to allow them into our community, or even to marry within the blood-lines of the magical, and then actively avoiding their communities makes you no better than Grandmother’s Noble House of Black.”

Molly sometimes forgot that even the families who supported the integration of the magical community with the muggles weren’t immune to the propaganda––she was glad Fabian spoke out against their brother. 

“But isn’t there something to say about how we are expected to restrict our life-styles for the sake of the inclusion movement?” Kathleen added. Molly could see her perched on a box now. “How many wizards are required to maintain secrecy and lose their use of magic because a muggle is living in a house next door and could see inside a window. If we don’t practice our magic, it becomes more dangerous.” 

“That’s the beauty of being a wizard, Kat,” Molly interjected. “You know, the part where you can cast concealment charms, or invent charms and spells that create the illusion of muggle normalcy.” 

Molly put a stack of clattering plates in the cupboard. The sound somehow mirrored her annoyances with the current conversation shift. 

“So, wizards are expected to forfeit their entire culture, hide who they are for the comfort of another population?”

Molly didn’t stay quiet, especially since she watched Genny’s face lower to hide her own reactions. The Muggle-Rights conversation always somehow turned into some kind of debate, and Genny was always careful not to get angry, she hated when that happened. Molly had only seen it twice, and she hoped that Genny never had to feel that again. Veela rage wasn’t just terrifying, it was also very dangerous.

“There are 55 million people in the United Kingdom, Kathleen,” Molly shot back. Alastor wandered into the kitchen and got himself a glass of water. She felt his hand touch hers, like he was reminding her that Kathleen was her friend and conversations like this were complicated and difficult to navigate. Molly kept going, though. “We are less than one percent of the European population, and you’re playing Devil’s Advocate for my brother who seems to be claiming he, a rich-Welsh wizard with an inheritance, is  _ oppressed  _ because he might have to wait to use magic where people can’t peer in. Honestly? Compared to the magic-less who are out there getting slaughtered, I think he’s got it pretty damn easy. I thought you were studying the law, Kathleen. You’d think the newspaper headlines would alarm you, seeing as there are wizards out there who are advocating for potion testing on Muggles.”

“I think Gideon is a prat who doesn’t know how to word what he means,” Genny interrupted. She was playing mediator again. Not defender, though. Her eyes told Molly that she didn’t agree with Gideon. “We all know he doesn’t support using anyone as test subjects, and he helped us find this place so we could all do our studies close to work. He’s lazy and wanted to levitate all the boxes up the stairs and is annoyed by the inconvenience. He’s dating a muggle-born for Merlin’s sake. You and I both know he’s not a blood-supremacist, Molly, just he’s an idiot who needs to learn that sometimes what you say is oppressive and prejudiced.” 

Genny turned to Kathleen, her eyes lightening to a bluer shade, like the tips of a raging fire .

“And if you want to practice defending someone, try writing out a defense for the vampire who was just executed because the ministry locked him up to eat nifflers for weeks. An imprisoned creature is classified as dangerous because they spent thousands of galleons to test his blood, and he then lashed out the second there was a human pulse next to him. Starving magical creatures to study, that’s worth more of a defense than a twit’s thought-less side comment about lugging boxes up six flights of stairs.”

Genny was doing an internship under Newt Scamander and had been researching cruel and unusual exploitation of magical creatures. Her research was driven by the mis-treatment of her mother in the French government, which forced her and her sister,  Apolline Dumas, to live in London with their father. Genny still retained her French citizenship and spoke fluent French, but she would be the first person in line for the French-Ministry reformation if and when it began. 

Gideon’s cheeks burned hot, Molly could tell. He pulled on his finger nails. Molly was glad he was uncomfortable. 

“Y’know, Gids, we have work tonight, we should go get some rest since you’re so tired,” Fabian suggested. Molly noticed him squeeze Genny’s hip. She stood and they walked down the small hallway to the front door. 

“Guess that’s my cue to go listen to your brother bitch,” Moody muttered, sighing. They had planned for the boys to spend the whole day, and Alastor was supposed to stay tonight. Molly knew they were just choosing to leave to diffuse the tension. “I’ll send an owl later.”

Molly nodded and leaned into Alastor’s lips on her cheek.

“I’ll just be hiding in my room, pretending that I don’t exist.”

* * *

After the boys left, Molly did just what she said she was going to do: she went into her room and closed the door to the conversation before. The light faded throughout the rest of the day, and she settled into her room to unpack the boxes she had brought from her father’s house. Slowly, shelves filled with muggle and magical books she had collected, necklaces hung on her vanity, hangers overflowed with her dresses and robes, and shoes were neatly lined up in a row in the bottom of the closet. Molly had been determined not to use an expansion charm on her closet, but about an hour into manually hanging her clothes she gave up, expanded the space, and unpacked the rest of her clothes boxes with magic. 

When Molly was younger, she used to hole up and avoid the conflicts that traveled throughout the house. The Prewett home was large enough to muffle any raised voice. The grandiose layout of her childhood home protected her from arguments and the days that felt especially daunting to face. There was a comfort in her loneliness sometimes, especially after her mother had died--it was the perfect time to climb into the window with a book or a song and choose to be safe and hidden from the uncertainty and unspoken perils of daily life.

That comfort of loneliness wasn’t working tonight. She could claim the mundane task of moving in had been cathartic, but she was simply doing it by hand because she wanted to waste time in her room and avoid unpacking any of that conversation. Yet, she ran over every detail in her mind. Times were quickly becoming daunting and dark, more political, and taking a stance felt more important than ever. Her mind raced with the repercussions of speaking to her brother the way she had. It was very possible that she got an owl from her father about respecting Gideon, but she really did believe it was important to be careful of how wizards spoke of muggles. Elitism could be easy to slip into, and she would soon learn how close that elistism was in her life.

The conflict made her queasy, yet she only came out of her thoughts when she heard a rapping at her window. They would have to find a way to get owls delivered without being so conspicuous; people would really start to wonder what weird tenants were inviting owls into their rooms, even if it did happen in the evening. 

The owl that sat stooped on her window sill was black with a merlot-like red dusted through the feathers. The coloring reminded her of the Edgar Allen Poe poem she had read as a part of her Muggle Studies course in school.

> Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
> 
> “Sir,” said I, “or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
> 
> But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
> 
> And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
> 
> That I scarce was sure I heard you”—here I opened wide the door;—
> 
> Darkness there and nothing more.

That last line of that stanza resonated with her while she unfolded the parchment that had her surname scrolled in deep-red ink in the top right corner. The world wasn’t just dark, it was people who were creating the darkness and that fact was hard to cope with. 

When her mind focused on the letter, she regretted having had her brothers over. Letters were never a good thing in the Prewett house. It’d been since last Easter since she had gotten a letter from her father, and that was a howler about how she had been caught sneaking out of the Ravenclaw common room with a bottle of Ogdens. It was late August now, so she assumed Gideon must have stopped by the house before heading back to Holyhead. 

She began to read, but paused to acknowledge the fanciful sweep of the ink across the scroll. Before looking at the signature, she knew who had sent the letter.

> Molly,
> 
> I hope you’re finding comfort in your new home. Genevieve and Kathleen will make wonderful memories with you in these coming years in London. You will all make it such a welcoming and comfortable place to live. If you need decorating tips, Madam Puddifoot has such great things to display if you need to make it feel more welcoming--I know you’ve never had to actually decorate before, so owl me if you’d like to go shopping. Or you could ask Kathleen; her parents have done a fine job raising her to be a respectable lady, so I am sure she could find something lovely to place on the walls. 
> 
> When you are in London, I suggest you take the time to learn the city, but be sure not to get too caught up in the night scenes. I’ve heard of people getting in trouble in pubs and music shops.
> 
> Your father and I have sent a notice to Gringotts that you are to have fifty galleons transferred to your vault a month. That should be enough to cover expenses for potion ingredients as you’re studying, your flat, and other needs. 
> 
> Your studies are important. Your brothers and Alastor came over for dinner this evening. It was lovely to catch up with them. We wish you would establish some time to come see your family more often than you do. It would be lovely to have someone to have tea with. 
> 
> I couldn’t help but notice that Alastor was sporting quite the lover’s mark below ear. It looked fresh, too. How you are perceived is important, Molly. We don’t do such things in this family and that behavior is unbecoming of you. I advised him to use a potion to take away the bruising, but, dear, I do worry about your pairing with someone so crass. His family isn’t well-to-do, and it’s not unknown that his mother is in Azkaban awaiting trial. Your father has a name to uphold, so I think it best that you find someone more suitable. A summer romance is one thing, having fun and experiencing life, but you are a woman now and should be looking for prospects who will be most suitable for raising a family and supporting you as you learn medi-witch skills for the home. 
> 
> I’ve invited Amos Diggory over for dinner next month and he is aware that you will be coming. My hope is that you consider him as a pairing––he is much more your equal and you would be much more comfortable with him as a husband.
> 
> I overheard your father and brothers talking about helping you move in. I encourage you and Genevieve to remember a woman’s place in politics is not to instruct, but to lead by example. Your place is not to tell Gideon how to express his political and social stances. Speak your opinions within the range of your friend’s, but be careful Molly. When you step outside of those walls, there are people waiting and willing to harm those who speak against their causes. I urge you to lower your eyes, learn your skills, and keep your wand out of politics. There is no sense in a witch who has nothing to do with the conflict to have a vocal opinion on such things. The second you step out that door you are representing your entire family, not just yourself.
> 
> Tell Kathleen and Genevive I send my regards.
> 
> Affectionately,
> 
> _**Harriet F. Prewett** _

Molly’s hands balled into a fist and the letter crumpled up. She pushed the owl back out into the dark and slammed her window closed. A few moments after the clamor, there was a small knock on her bedroom door.

“Molly, are you--okay? Are you hurt?” 

Kathleen’s voice was soft and uncharacteristically concerned at the same time. Molly didn’t trust herself to speak without screaming, and she didn’t think she could move without throwing something. Day one in the flat and she was three seconds from cursing a hole in her bedroom wall. 

“Give me a moment,” Molly said quietly, pulling herself together. Harriet was right about one thing: perception was important. Her father’s wife would not get the (unknown) satisfaction of openly influencing Molly. Spitefully, all she wanted was to find Alastor and give him a mark to mirror the one Harriet had chastised--and maybe get one of her own. Except he would be working now, and the girls were here.

Moments passed and Molly evaluated her breathing patterns. When her heart rate was regulated and her hands stopped shaking, Molly opened her door and returned to the living room for the first time since everyone left. The living room was set up now; the other girls had clearly been just as busy as Molly had been. There were plants out on the side-tables, the couch was readjusted, and the record player was out. Without saying anything to the other two, Molly pulled out their new copy of  _ Revolution _ and put it on the turntable. The needle scratched the vinyl, and Molly turned the volume up. 

Music drowned out any of the concern in the eyes of her friends. Eventually Molly went into the kitchen and uncorked a bottle of cabernet that Alastor had brought for them to drink as a celebration of independence and adulthood. She took a long drink right from the bottle before deciding to share with her mates.

“Let’s dance,” Molly suggested as she poured three generous tea-cups of wine. She passed them out to her friends before taking a long gulp of the alcohol and twirling in her dress. The skirt flowered out and tangled around her legs before she stopped in the middle of the room and gestured to her friends who were staring at her in amazement. Molly was always so put together, but tonight she was refusing conformity and expectations. “Get your asses over her and dance with me.”

Together, the three women swayed along with the music, drinking wine, and celebrating their new lives together. Molly danced along with the beat, drinking wine, thankful that she was somewhere she could be her own person and celebrate the life she was choosing for herself. By the end of the night, they were flat on their back in their living room laughing sweetly, finishing off two more bottles, and joyously expressing their love of one another.

Her life had begun and no one was going to stop her.


	7. Gallifrey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Molly has lunch with Percy and Charlie. The first task approaches Harry in the Triwizard Tournament and she can't help but be worried enough to try and intervene. Molly and Charlie argue over a difference of opinion.
> 
> (TW: Sibling death mention)
> 
> Writers note: Please don't post spoilers in the comment section of this chapter. Major plot reveal in this chapter!
> 
> "One day, I shall come back. Yes, I shall come back. Until then, there must be no regrets, no tears, no anxieties. Just go forward in all your beliefs and prove to me that I am not mistaken in mine." -The First Doctor

All Molly could think about was how Harry shouldn’t be in this tournament. Godrick, she hated that he had been chosen for the cup at all. She had sent Alastor at least ten owls trying to get him to explain what could have happened with that goblet, demanding she know how an underage child would have gotten in that cup under his nose. With each letter her language became more _intense_. He never answered her. He had always answered, even after everything, but this time he was ignoring her concerns, which was making her even more on edge than usual. 

There was a sizzling on the stove-top that drew her attention to a large engulfment of smoke to billow throughout the kitchen. When she was upset, Molly cooked with her hands and not her wand, but it wasn’t going so well today. Her bread was still proofing, so that meant it was safe for now, but the vegetables she had been sautéing were done for. 

“Shit, shit, shit,” she muttered to herself. She waved her wand and the windows burst open so she could guide the smoke out of the room. The fire on the stove poofed up, and she quickly extinguished the flame. “Ruined a perfectly good lunch.”

It was hard to be disappointed by the lost lunch, though. There was so much happening around her right now that it seemed miniscule. The first task was approaching this week and Harry had no idea what was coming for him--and she really shouldn’t. Honestly, she wished she didn’t know what was to come. Charlie should have kept that bit to himself, though it was highly probably that she would have put two-and-two together when she found out he was out on the grounds for work. Harry was going to be facing a creature used to protect gold in caves, the creature Beowulf had to stab with a Goblin-made sword to defeat. The story of Beowulf’s wizard-adventures may be a legend she loved to tell the boys as children, but she didn’t want to think about Harry getting close enough to the flank of a dragon to try to inflict damage. 

Her distracted eyes wandered to the window, and she blew the hair from her fringe out of her eyes only for it to fall right back into its pesky place.

“You know, you have a wand, mum,” a voice informed her as it entered the kitchen. Molly tried not to take offense to the statement when Percy picked up a cup for tea. He came home for lunches, something Arthur hadn’t done since Ginny was still home. “It can cook the perfect temperature and time without you needing a fire at all.”

“Who do you think cooked for you the last eighteen years, Percy?” Molly reminded him, shifting her worried demeanor to the motherly stance, hand on her hip and quirky smile and all. “I am just keeping my hands busy and trying to make something nice for Charlie when he comes for tea later.”

“Charlie is coming?” he repeated her words as a question, following by a hum while he tapped the edge of his teacup with his wand to heat the water. “You didn’t tell me you’d invited him over for tea, I’d have planned for the afternoon off.”

Molly missed being that young: alive and awed by the new-allowance of magic in your daily life. Percy had yet to re-learn the beauty in the mundane tasks that made one a person. Arthur had taught her that when they’d first gotten married--she often remembered the joy in which he used a tea kettle to heat water for her when she was pregnant with Bill. The thought made her hope for Percy to find a life as simple and beautiful as she had. In all honesty, he reminded her the most of herself; ambitious and resolute, which would sometimes come off as abrasive and rigid. 

“I was hoping for some alone time with him, Perc,” she told him softly. Molly waved her wand and a teacup lowered from the cupboard next to his. Percy kindly tapped the side of that cup as well. Hot, steaming water flowed from the tip of his wand. Both cups now had tea bags in them to steep. Neither of them used magic in this process--it was common knowledge that the best tea took time to steep and magic couldn’t speed up that process at all. “I haven’t seen him since the cup, and that feels like an eternity ago, honestly. He’s just running an errand to the castle and I have some things I am sending to Ronald and Ginny. He’ll be back for dinner though, so you and your father will still get to see him.”

The look Percy gave her was inquisitive. Second to Charlie, Percy had the best deduction skills--Molly could feel him look through her into her true intentions. 

“You know if you ask him to say something to Harry he will,” Percy said quietly. Molly couldn’t tell if it was a suggestion or a warning. “He should have been a Hufflepuff, that one. His loyalty is extraordinary.” 

Molly only nodded at Percy’s comment. Her son’s face contorted a little, and she hoped that he was acknowledging how barbaric this was for the Boy Who Lived, the Boy Who Had Become Her Son, to even be in the asinine competition. Rita Skeeter was reporting and romanticizing how it was going well, but Molly’s gut told her something was wrong. With a controlled face, she picked up her cup and moved to the table, gesturing to the bench across from her so he would sit and have tea with her. When he conceded to her suggestion, she waved her hand and took his previous suggestion for lunch. Bread and turkey flew around them with plates and other toppings. Within moments there were two sandwiches on the table in front of them and Percy was speaking again.

“You know you can’t ask him to speak with Harry,” Percy noted. His voice was quiet, less confident than she had heard in a long time. “That’s against the rules.”

The rules. Her son and the rules. If only he knew how many rules she’d broken in her lifetime. 

“I am not going to suggest he do any such thing, I know what that could mean for Harry and I am not about to get him pushed into a more dangerous position,” she defended. Percy picked up his sandwich and broke it up into eight pieces. She didn’t need to count, she knew exactly how many it would be. Molly pulled the tea bag from her cup and set it on a saucer and then added a dash of milk. “I just want to make sure Charlie gets a message to Alastor to watch Harry.”

Molly could feel Percy watch her when she added several spoons of sugar to her tea. The grains floated through the liquid, and she didn’t notice how it settled on the bottom of the cup, unable to dissolve into the liquid. Percy’s nose scrunched before he reached out and touched his mother’s hand. 

“S’too much, mum,” he told her, nodding down at the amber liquid. Molly knew it would bother him if she drank it this way, so she put the spoon into the cup and scooped the excess back out. It pooled on the saucer, making a bit of a mess, which Percy promptly waved his wand to clean.

“I don’t see why you trust that git so much, mum,” Percy commented. Percy had an opinion on most people, but it surprised her how he spoke seemingly ill of someone so influential at the ministry. Percy must have read her face because he continued to explain. “He’s missed every whole-staff meeting since June and he has a stack of unanswered owls on his desk. I don’t care if he’s teaching, he has to do something in his department.”

Alastor wasn’t answering letters. Molly took a long sip of tea, the cup acting as a masquerade mask and hiding the worry in her eyes for just a moment. Her son finished his lunch and moved to his tea. The clock on the wall moved Charlie’s face to _In Transit_ as soon as it chimed for one. 

“Oh no! Mum, I was supposed to leave eleven minutes ago!” 

Molly had thrown Percy off his schedule by extending his lunch and would need to make it up to him later. After lunch, he usually took time to review notes and mime himself through something large like this. He would return to the office in shambles, rushed and feeling underprepared for the Gold Cauldron presentation he had in ten minutes and all he could do was stand there and look at the pieces of uneaten sandwich and half-drunk tea. 

“Percy,” Molly said, reaching out and guiding his face to look directly at her. “I will handle the mess. Close your eyes, take a breath, and let me do it this time. You go do what you need to. I will see you for dinner, love.”

Percy nodded once and gathered his wand and traveling hat. Molly shooed him a little. Before he could apparate he had to close his eyes tightly and take in a few deep breaths. The pop he left in the air released a bit of the pressure, though he was immediately followed by another apparition into the house. 

“Smells like something died in here,” Charlie joked immediately. He dropped his bad to the floor and wrapped his mother in a long-warm hug. Molly was glad Percy had left because the frayed state of that bag would have really set his day off; Charlie would never have allowed Percy to repair it. Her second oldest son loved the wear-and-tear that came with his job, so the bad fit his aesthetic perfectly. Percy? Not so much. When he embraced her, Charlie smelled like the wild--not that it made sense for her to say that, but it really was what she thought of when he hugged her. He pulled away. “Two teas? Seems like a bit much, even for you.”

She shook her head and patted at his chest before backing away to clean the table. The crumbs wouldn’t bother Charlie, but she promised Percy that she would take care of it, so she made sure to do so. She waved her wand and the mess flew away, leaving a single cup of tea on the table. The rest of the dishes washed themselves, and the food mess vanished. “Percy was here for lunch and he had to rush off,” she told him. “Was nearly late for a meeting.”

“He’ll be pleasant at dinner then,” Charlie said. Years of observation would have told her empath that Percy would find the rest of the day difficult. Charlie was the only brother who never tugged on Percy’s jumper, ruffled his perfectly-groomed hair, or played the _almost but not really poking you_ game with him for giggles. Charlie was her sweetest son, and she was glad he took the most after Arthur. “Should I not come, or….?”

“No, he is planning for you to be here. If you don’t come, it’ll throw him off more and make tomorrow harder. Stay for dinner and ask him about the Gold Cauldron presentation. He’s been feeling a bit like he’s talked too much to me about it, so it’ll be nice for him to feel like someone finds those interests valid.”

There was a nod of understanding from Charlie who was now biting into an apple. Charlie’s free hand reached into the dragon-hide satchel that was hanging from his arm. The pockets of his bag bulbed as he fished around and pulled out a vile of green blood and then a vile of bright-scarlet blood. 

“Got the blood you asked for, though,” he absently noted to his mother. 

“Oh, good!” she exclaimed. She was quite excited to have the ingredients for her cleaning and healing potions. Molly hurried out of the room.

She returned with one small package labeled _Ronald_ and two larger ones without names. “Here’re some snacks for Ronald. And a tie that I forgot to send with his dress robes,” she told Charlie. “And the crimson package is the dress I pulled out of storage for Ginny. It’s an old dress of mine she will need for the Yule ball. She’s told me she is hoping to have someone ask her so she can go, too. I suggested Ronald take her, but she’s said she might suggest to a Dean Thomas that she wants to go.”

Molly had taken a dress she’d worn as a young woman and tailored it to fit her daughter. There was some sentiment to having Ginny wear the same maroon dress she wore to the Ministry's Winter Ball when she was younger.

Charlie took the crimson package from his mother and tucked it into the satchel, moving the bag to rest on the edge of the table. He reached for the emerald package and turned it over in his hands. 

“W’as this for?” Charlie inquired with a piece of apple shoved in his cheek.

“I’m sending Mafalda a dress for the Yule ball. Her father won’t know how to dress her, and her mother has divorced him since she found out he was a wizard. Quite unfortunate, really. Though, I don’t know how she married the self-involved fool to begin with.”

Mafalda was Molly’s second-cousin’s daughter. He’d left the wizarding world after the first war and gone to a muggle university. After he graduated, he became a stock broker in the United States and stopped speaking to the family. Molly understood, they were unprecedented times and, if she had experienced what he had, would have cut the family off too. It was for the best, though; Phillip was well known in the family for being arrogant about his efforts in the war. His incessant talking was also a turn off. He’d only contact Molly and Arthur because he wanted to use their address for his daughter to attend Hogwarts and not Ilvermorny. 

“I am glad they never made me wear dress robes when I was in school,” he mused as he shoved all three packages further into the bag. 

While he adjusted the packages there was a rustling coming from Charlie, which confused her quite a bit. She sniffed and smelt something else burning. Before she could ask, a pocket-sized Norwegian Ridgeback popped out of the breast of Charlie’s vest. Molly’s eyes widened. 

“That is not staying in my house,” she quickly exclaimed. 

With zero disrespect, Charlie rolled his eyes at his mother. “Mum, it’s just a small replica. It’s a test I am bringing to show the judges for the tournament. It breathes fire, but it’s fake and not hot enough to really burn anything substantial.” He held out his hand and the dragon-replica trotted onto his open palm.

“You are worse than Hagrid, Charlie Branur Weasley!” Molly had named him after Arthur’s brother who was, ironically, afraid of fire and dragons alike. For a man with the namesake of the Arthurian Dragon Knight, Branur was quite the coward.

“Actually, I named him Gallifrey,” Charlie beamed. “After that Muggle show you used to watch with Uncle Fabian. I remember liking the mystery and beauty of their lives, all those possibilities. Thought it was fitting for this guy. He’s innovative, the beginning of tiny-pet dragons if it’s successful as a prototype in the Tournament.” 

Molly looked down at the spiked dragon and then back up at her son. He remembered visiting his uncle? Her bottom lip quivered a little and turned into a strange mixture of a pleased and broken-hearted smile. Charlie was making the dreams of children a reality and breaking his mother’s heart at the same time.

Molly didn’t know Charlie even remembered much about Fabian and Gideon: they never talked about her older brothers. Her son had been nearly nine when they had died in November of 1981. At the time, it had felt like the war had ended--the aurors were rounding the rest of the death eaters up for questioning when some of the loyalists sought out something. Authorities told her it had been revenge, or maybe Dolohov was looking for Voldemort himself. No one knew. It warmed her heart to know that the efforts to give the boys some kind of normalcy in that time had worked a little, that he remembered something like that from those years, because when the boys were living in the height of it, Molly and Arthur tried to create a safety net that helped them all forget the radio casts of death that Gideon and Fabian read off every week. They tried to keep them from as much of the conflict as possible, that is until her brothers stopped broadcasting and landed themselves on the list. There was a knot in her throat that she had to clear before she spoke again. 

“C’mon now, let’s get you some lunch before you’re stuck eating leftovers from student lunches,” Molly suggested. Charlie had sat down and let Gallifrey wander around the wooden table. “That thing best not scorch my good table.”

“It’s fine mum,” he countered quickly, laughing at his mother. 

She met his defence with a motherly scoff while she prepared his lunch. The food she had started for him was ruined, so she waved her wand to clear the mess. She hadn’t finished the bread which meant that she was going to have to abandon her plan to make lunch by hand. In only a few minutes she had transformed part of her pantry into a small lunch for Charlie. Mashed potatoes and ham with asparagus and red-velvet cake for dessert. The portions were small––she wasn’t eating anyway. While he sat down, she went to the desk in the living room and pulled out a rolled up parchment. The parchment lay on the table close to her while she made conversation with her son. “Will you be staying as a guest at the castle during the task, or will you leave other caretakers?”

“There’s no way in hell I am leaving my babies with some caretaker, even if one of them is Hagrid,” Charlie muffled through bites of food. He’d always been closer to Hagrid than the others, even more-so than Ron and Harry were. The deep love and affection that Charlie carried for his dragons, and any magical creature, was fostered through his relationship with Hagrid. Though, that always had made Molly uncomfortable. Not because there was anything wrong with Hagrid, he was always kind and lovely, but because Charlie would have loved his Aunt Genny more than anyone in this world had he been allowed to meet her. Charlie’s voice picked up again through her thoughts. “––I know they’re qualified and all, but I raised these guys and I expect them to be well cared for. I don’t want someone using some curse on Francine just because she’s protecting something. It’s abuse, really. I spent weeks arguing with the Romanian Ministry to not let them bring us over here. It’s cruel, it’s abuse. If they’re going to insist they villainize perfectly kind animals I will make sure the dragons are treated right.”

She didn’t understand his love of dragons, they were dangerous and it made her overly anxious. “I really wish you would be more careful with your fire-breathing reptiles,” Molly noted with concern.

“They’re not just reptiles. Sometimes they’re amphibians. There are some Scottish and Briazilian dragons that are hatched in the water without legs. It’s magnificent really!” Molly could tell he was going to get off on a tangent with this, so she leaned in on her hand, an elbow on the table, and listened to him correct her misinformation. “Over time, they develop into a full dragon with lungs and such. Eventually, they live on land but hunt underwater.”

“I know you’re an expert, but it worries me how you just fling yourself in front of wild animals.”

“Mum, that makes you part of the problem, you know. They’re just misunderstood, really. Wild, sure, but they aren’t feral or anything. They’ve got feelings and preferences.”

Somehow, Charlie had guilted her for feeling worried about him prancing with XXXXX creatures. Though Charlie didn’t think the ability to be domesticated and trained was what made a creature beautiful, it was their beauty and wonder. His empathy also reminded Molly of Genny. Towards the end of their stay in London, Genny had started contact with Alice Longbottom and had talked of joining the fight against Voldemort. Molly wondered how it would have been different if Fabian would have let her join The Order. Molly’s life would be much different, she knew that for sure. 

Her eyes shot over to the small dragon that was now blowing a cerise-colored fire onto the bottom of the lone teacup. The tea started bubbling up and Molly had to look away, choosing to ignore the scorch marks that were forming on the mug. Instead, she picked up the parchment and fiddled with it a moment. It was closed and sealed, ready for delivery. 

“Charlie.” The timbre of her voice lowered and the pace slowed. Charlie’s eye-brow quirked up. She had his attention. “Take this to Alastor. He’s not answering my owls and it’s important he gets this.”

“Does dad know you’re sending this?” Charlie was quite moralistic. 

“Your father doesn’t need to know everything, Charlie. And that’s not your business.” Molly shouldn’t have been so defensive, but she really hated the feeling that she was being accused of something she would never think of.

“It is my business. If you’re sending a post to Mad-Eye without dad knowing, I am complicit in something, I do know that. I am not about to get in the middle of whate––”

“––Charlie Weasley, don’t accuse me of being secretive and nefarious. _Alastor_ hasn’t answered my owls, which your father knew I sent, so I am simply sending one through you. Percy said he’s not getting his letters and this message is quite important to me.”

“Is he not getting them, or does he just not want to speak with you?” The way he was speaking to her was so matter-of-fact it was infuriating. Molly knew his opinions on her past relationship with Alastor, and he was much less understanding about it than Bill had been. Sometimes she felt like he was more betrayed than Bill. She wanted to chastise Charlie for his honesty, even if he’d gotten that trait from her, but she couldn’t be offended. Charlie didn’t fully understand, he only had part of the story.

“Alastor and I are on speaking terms, we have been for years,” she apprised. “We have no reason not to be speaking with one another. An owl isn’t the end of the world, Charlie.”

“But Bill and Mad-Eye aren’t on speaking terms,” Charlie retorted. “You’re not the one I am worried about here.”

“And that’s not your concern, either. That’s your brother’s choice. William’s choice not to speak with Alastor is exactly that: his choice. He’s able to send an owl. ”

“He isn’t on speaking terms with his father, mum. That’s kind of a big deal and I am not about to go galavanting and associating around with Mad-Eye if Bill still feels like he did before.”

“And that is between Bill and Alastor.” Molly wondered what Bill had said to Charlie about Alastor, or even how much Bill had actually talked to Alastor, but she had promised years ago that she was going to stay out of how they chose to handle their relationship, especially after the words that were exchanged last time Moody and Bill had seen each other. Bill wasn’t just protective of himself here; he had many choice words about how Alastor had handled everything. Or at least about what he knew of the situation. “Bill was given a choice. Your father raised Bill without questions, which is not your business. It’s your father and my business.”

Charlie pushed his lunch away and crossed his arms. Gallifrey came over and nibbled at his elbow. His hand stroked the back of the dragon. It was impressive how life-like and domesticated the replica seemed. 

“It’s more complicated than you try make it, mum. If it wasn’t, the rest of the kids would know.”

“They don’t need to know I’ve been with their professor. That’s not their business at all. Imagine if Ron knew that? Or the twins. Godrick, they would never go to Defense Against the Dark Arts.”

“Yeah.” His eyes followed the dragon climb up his arm and nuzzle into his neck.

“Charlie. I married your father, I love your father, I love you. None of this is as complicated as you’ve made it. Alastor would have made an unreliable husband and father. I suggest you drop this and deliver the letter.”

It was exactly as complicated as he was making it, if not more.

“I’ll deliver it. Only if you tell me what it’s got inside.”

She exhaled her indignation. The two oldest becoming adults meant that she had to face the ghosts of her past in a new light, and she always felt like she had to defend her choices. They saw her life differently now that they were adults. She abjured, though, and agreed with a simple nod.

“It’s just asking him to watch out for Harry,” she sighed. “Your father and I both think it’s best that Alastor looked out for Harry, especially with the tournament.”

“You think he’s not?”

“I dunno what he’s thinking. We’re on speaking terms, but we aren’t chummy, Charlie. We don’t exactly get tea anymore. Just give him the letter.” She held out the parchment to her son. There were a few seconds that weighed in the air before Charlie took the letter. 

“Fine, I’ll give it to him, but I’m going to make it smell like the poo of the Blast-Ended Skrewts I am feeding the baby fire-starters,” Charlie said matter-of-factly. The tension was diffused and Molly laughed. 

“And when you see Ron, will you take him to the dragons? He didn’t see them at Christmas a few years back, and he’s upset about Harry getting in the tournament. I think he’d appreciate spending some time with you, too.” 

Maybe if Ron knew about the Dragons, Harry would somehow hear the information trickle through rumors. Ron and Harry were in a tiff, she knew that, but she couldn’t sit back and read Rita Skeeter spread the defeat (or death!) of Harry in the first task.

**Author's Note:**

> *Future chapters will include the first-war, the marauders, and have moments from the second-wizarding war.*


End file.
